


Is It Better to Have Loved

by Skalidra



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Minor Character Death, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possibly Pre-Slash, Souls in Objects, soulless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 69,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/pseuds/Skalidra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his mystery resurrection, Talia finds Jason on the streets of Gotham, half mad and missing his container - the object that contains his soul. Out of respect and love for Bruce, she puts him in the Lazarus Pit to see if it can heal the torn connection to his soul. It doesn't. Alive but soulless, Jason decides to play the one role he's suited for. Cleaning up Gotham by whatever means necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! So this is something I'm actually really excited for you guys to see. Backstory: This is an AU in which souls are contained in objects outside a person's body; think Golden Compass style but with inanimate objects instead of animals, for a guideline. Most of the rules will become clear as you read this, but the very basics are that you're tied to this object. If you go without touching it for too long, you start to go mad and die. Too long, and you really will die. If someone else gets a hold of your soul-object, they have control over you and you are unable to disobey any of their orders.
> 
> Basically, this is soulless!Jason comes back to Gotham to rid it of crime and is uh... _very_ good at it. Mostly. I've got ten chapters so far, no slash yet but we'll see.

It hurts. _Everything_.

Not just the fire in my veins, or the awful, wet, drag of liquid where I should be breathing air, but _everything_. I ache down to my bones, I feel _wrong_ , and I thrash in the embrace of liquid. Instinct gets me to the surface, breaks my head up into the air but there's already water in my lungs and it doesn't matter. I convulse, falling back beneath the surface, the flash of fire and rock and figures dressed in red not making any sense.

_Something_ about me works, forces me forward while the rest screams and struggles, until my feet brush rough rock and I can uncurl and throw my head above the surface again. Until I have the leverage and space for my muscles to do what they're trying to, hacking and coughing, stomach cramping as whatever's in my system comes back out. Because it's _not_ water. It's green and stinging, and so is the pool I'm partially submerged in, and the second I can do more than retch and cough I push towards the edge.

The rough stone edge drags across my skin, leaves stinging scrapes, but I just want _out_. The air is cold against my wet skin, droplets of whatever the _fuck_ it is dripping down my jaw and nose from the wet cling of my hair to my scalp. My hands slip on the stone, sending me crashing to one shoulder, and the sharp pain parts my mouth in a gasp. My fingers curl to fists, knees instinctively drawing up to make me a smaller target.

I try and breathe, burying my face against the stone. It _barely_ works.

There's the sharp tap of footsteps — low heel, my mind recites, stone floor, deliberate noise — and I snap my head up, trying to brace to uncurl. Because some part of me knows it has to fight; _always_ has to fight.

It's a woman, long brown hair, skintight suit, a gun strapped to one thigh and a knife to the other. I snarl at her, baring my teeth, and she comes to a stop in front of me. I'm tunneling, and part of me warns against that, _knows_ that I can't afford to focus so completely on one thing, but…

"Do you remember who you are?" she asks, hands at her sides and _so_ close to those weapons. The words take a minute to register.

" _Jason_ ," I spit, when I understand the question. She looks familiar, but I can't place her. Everything still aches, and burns, and there's something I can't pinpoint that's wrong. Something is _wrong_. "Robin. Where am I?" My voice is rough, cracking from my fight with whatever that pool has in it, but it's understandable.

"Do you remember what happened?" I bare my teeth again at the _complete_ bypass of my question.

But then I haltingly — why is there this _screaming_ bit of me that doesn't want to look back? — think about her words, and it's foggy but I can remember… I…

Oh _god_.

I cringe at the remembered impact of metal across my shoulders, the _crunch_ of bone, the _laugh_ of a man so psychotic he _enjoyed_ it. The emerald green eyes, blood red lips, white skin, and dark, _dark_ metal of the crowbar. The _pain_. The _fear_. The red display of a bomb, ticking down, and the sobs of a woman too _stupid_ to realize how bad an idea it was. The knowledge that my hands were too broken — _I_ was too broken — to do anything but try and shield her with my own body.

My mother. The _Joker_.

"I remember," I gasp, and it _hurts_ but there's not the terror I expect. My breath comes free and easy apart from the sting of the damage to my throat, and I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment to shake my head. "Why—?"

Then the memory hits me of waking up in the dark, in pain and with an awful _hollow_ in my chest. Of being clear headed enough — no fear, why wasn't I _afraid?_ — to use the buckle of my belt to dig through solid wood and claw my way out into wet earth and not enough air. Of stumbling away from my own _grave_ and into Gotham's streets; blacking out not anywhere _near_ wherever I was trying to go, and I wasn't even sure of that. I just knew I had to move, had to go _somewhere_.

I shudder. The rest is fuzzy, disconnected images of dirty sunlight and dirtier streets, of neverending hunger and the sense of something, _everything_ , being off. Just not, right.

That part I still feel. Something isn't right. Something…

"Father?" My eyes snap open, follow the woman's gaze back to another figure — and more circled around the walls, but they're hooded, unmoving, not important — that strides across the room with the same click of low heels.

" _Ra's_ ," I snarl, my teeth showing and my eyes narrowing. It hits me again that I should be afraid, but as he comes up beside her all I can feel is _anger_ , and a sickening swirl of… of…

"Well?" she demands, sounding imperious, with a single arched eyebrow.

"It seems to have worked," Ra's concedes, grudgingly. "Are you certain the path you intend to pursue is wise, daughter?"

Daughter? Oh, of _course_. Ra's al Ghul, and Talia. I've never fought her before, but Bruce taught me about her. I remember. She's dangerous, and Bruce had stressed that she wasn't any less so just because she was a woman. Like I didn't already know that. Of _course_ she wasn't. Half the women I knew in Crime Alley could slaughter any man who'd tried to tell them what to do, and the fact that Poison Ivy runs a park in the middle of Gotham by herself should mean no one has to be _told_ women can be as dangerous as men.

She's armed, he must be too beneath his old-fashioned robes, and the way he's looking at me isn't friendly. I'm injured, somewhere — have to be, with how I _hurt_ — and my skin is bare. My suit is gone, my weapons aren't here, and I'm a good hand-to-hand fighter, but enough for Ra's? Probably—

My thoughts abruptly derail.

My suit, my weapons, my— _No_. I jerk my head down, desperately dragging my gaze down my own skin, and when that doesn't tell me anything but that I'm _not hurt_ , follow it up with my hands. It has to be here somewhere, it _has_ to be. Dull panic settles in my chest, a _need_ , but it's not as strong as it should be. Muted, distant, and the equally dull horror locks claws into my chest and refuses to let go.

"Where is it?" I demand, jerking my head up, my hands clasped together over my chest, _clinging_. I— I feel… I _don't_ feel, but I ache and I'm tired and everything that isn't anger is distant and cold, _hollow_.

Talia winces, and Ra's' mouth tightens a bit as he answers, "When my daughter found you, you were living on Gotham's streets. Mindless but for instinct. You carried no container."

I jerk, _feeling_ the truth in the hollow ache in every inch of my bones. Still, I try and deny it. Try and deny that the muted, dull, horror in my stomach and the _lack_ of fear while I'm kneeling at the feet of one of my mentor's greatest enemies isn't _exactly_ what I know it is. The _lack_ of something important, something hidden and contained in a small, worn piece of metal that _shone_ because I always wore it close, always rubbed it between my fingers when I thought no one else was looking.

The same way Bruce's gaze would drift to a locked, hidden compartment in the bottom of the Bat-computer, or how Dick would lower a hand to the side of his left thigh and the always fraying but never falling apart piece of rope he kept within his suit.

" _No_ ," I beg, my voice shaking but I don't know why or how. There's no fear to guide it, only the pain and the knowledge that I'm not complete, not _right_. " _Please_."

"The Lazarus Pit has sealed the wound, for now. I recognize that it is cold comfort to you." Ra's inclines his head towards Talia. "My daughter has decided to take your care upon herself. Out of respect for my foe, I will allow it. You may stay with us until you decide what you intend to do, be that whatever it may. I bear no ill will towards you, Jason, and even if I did I would not wish the fate of a lost soul on even the Detective himself."

My— _God_. I knew it could happen, _logically_. I knew there were people confined in mental asylums, hospitals, that had been separated from the containers of their souls. But they waste away, they _die_. You _have_ to have a connection to your container.

Why am I alive? _How?_

Ra's turns away, and Talia steps forward and offers me a hand. I stare at it, consider it, fight through the burn of anger and the muted horror, feel the _ache_ in every bit of me.

"Why?" I ask, finally.

"Come with me, and I'll tell you."

I take her hand.

* * *

The Joker's alive — _free_ — and there's someone else wearing my name. Some other kid — _"Timothy Drake,"_ Talia tells me when she shows me the news articles — in a modified version of the Robin costume. Small and thin compared to me, and even more so now that I'm growing. I might only vaguely remember the months between, but time moved on anyway.

I tear my room apart that night, scream my fury into the walls and break anything I can get my hands on. I break my hands in the process, and the pain is sharp and welcoming, it's a _distraction_. Pain is something I can feel with no interference, and I don't stop until my knuckles bleed and the exhaustion takes me with almost no warning.

Talia finds me the next morning, unconscious in the center of my room, and I come to with my head in her lap. Moving hurts, thinking hurts, and my eyes are dry but only because I'm not capable of tears. I take what little comfort I can from the stroke of her hands over my scalp, my own lax and still against the floor. Eventually she pulls me up, cradled in her arms and I don't — can't — care enough to protest being carried like I'm a child.

I keep my eyes closed, and don't open them again until she shifts to set me down on the edge of something. Then I flick them open to recognize it as the metal of an examination table, as she sets me down with my legs over the edge, holding me up until she's sure I'm sitting on my own. I watch, not willing to feel what little I can, while she collects first aid supplies from around the room, and then brings them over on a tray to set down next to me.

It's not quite numbness. There's a faint, blocked sense of what I should be feeling, but that only makes it worse. It's a reminder that I _can't_ feel any of what I should, that I'm confined to anger, and anything past it is only filled with the hollow ache of a _lack_. The _constant_ pain that tells me I'm _wrong_.

I wince when she starts picking fragments of wood and glass out of my knuckles, but close my eyes and breathe through the pain. _Welcoming_ it because I don't have anything else left. Talia told me that I'm _strong_ , that that's why she rescued me off the streets and tried to heal me. She told me no one else has ever been documented surviving being separated from their soul as many months as I did. But she doesn't know what brought me back to begin with.

"Most of your fingers are broken," she says quietly, and I open my eyes to look at her.

"Felt good," I answer without thinking about it, and then pause, shake my head. "No. I _can_ feel pain." It's different. There's so many ways I used to say things that don't work anymore. Things don't feel 'good,' they don't feel _anything_ , but the fact that I can feel something at all, even something physical, is enough. I can focus on it.

Talia considers me, her eyes slightly narrowed before she sighs and reaches sideways, setting aside the tweezers and picking up a swab that she dips in a bowl of some kind of clear liquid. "You will regain your container, Jason. If you choose to search for it."

"Don't _lie_ to me," I snarl, fury sparking bright in my chest, and how _intense_ it is takes my breath. Like last night, where I could barely breathe through the memory of laughter and the _rage_ spurred on by the new Robin's face. " _God_ , why is this—? Why can I still feel this _anger?_ "

The swab stings, swiping across the knuckles of one hand. Disinfectant?

"Normally, the Lazarus Pit's side effects cause brief insanity," she starts, her gaze trained down at my hands, "to those with lesser will. It enhances their anger until they become little more than snarling beasts. My best theory is that because of what has happened to you, it strengthened that particular part of the connection to your soul enough to allow you to feel the anger, despite the distance."

I think, if my soul was really _gone_ and — worst case scenario — it didn't come back to life with me, that wouldn't be possible at all. I'd just be completely numb, wouldn't I? There wouldn't be this faint sense of feeling in my gut, right?

That's… better, I think.

"It is only a guess. You are unique, Jason."

"So you keep telling me," I answer, without the bite to back it up. It's _strange_. So much of how I speak is automatic responses that I don't think about until it's already out of my mouth. But without the feelings to back them up, it's all empty. I'll have to change this, or _something_. It's just this awful reminder that I'm… "What am I supposed to do?" I ask quietly, meeting her gaze when it turns up to me.

"That is your decision." Her voice is plain, one eyebrow raising. "I think enough has been taken from you without removing your right to free will as well."

I give a small nod, staying silent as her gaze falls back to my hands. When she moves on to setting my broken fingers it _hurts_ , but pain isn't new to me, and the fact I can feel something is still enough to offset the actual pain. It's not enough to make me jerk away, though I'm not totally capable of stopping the noises of pain I make in response.

A colder part of my mind takes the pain and uses it to focus, considering my options.

I can't go home, that much is obvious. Even if there were still a place for me beside Bruce and Dick — the one filled by that bastard, _Timothy_ — it wouldn't work. Legally, I'm dead. Even if _that_ wasn't true, what would they do with me like I am now? An abomination, a walking _mistake_ , cut off from everything I am except the _one_ thing that Bruce never even pretended to like about me. My temper, my _anger_.

No, there's nothing left for me there.

I can try tracking down the container of my soul. But the first two places I can think of looking are my coffin, and the cave, and both of those would bring me face to face with Bruce. Who let the Joker kill me, who didn't get there in time to save me, who replaced me within _months_. Who didn't even do more to the Joker than throw him in Arkham to break out, again. Who apparently never noticed that I clawed my way out of my own grave and spent months living, mindless, on his streets.

There's a lot of my anger that's directed at Bruce.

If those two places don't work, even if I could _possibly_ get to them without alerting Bruce to the fact I'm alive and _wrong_ , where would I even start looking? I know that I'm missing it, but how do I find my soul? Will it pull me the right direction if I'm close enough? Is there some kind of internal tug I can follow if I can focus on it through meditation? Is there some kind of magical way to trace the connection? I've got _no_ idea.

So if that's true, I guess… I guess the best option would just be to accept what I am now. Not as difficult as it might be, considering that any kind of grief or fear over it is gone. That just leaves the anger to deal with, and the frustration, and that's not _easier_ I don't think, but I have at least a little bit of practice dealing with anger. I can probably make it work.

That doesn't give me anything to _do_ with what I am, but at least that takes the focus off of trying to fix me. At least then the search for my soul will be incidental, and not the focus of my existence. That's _definitely_ easier. Then, if I never find it, it's not as big a deal. It's better that way.

So, I'm accepting that this is my life. To never feel anything but anger and pain. That's… it's _wrong_ , but I can learn to deal. I've dealt with a shitty life before.

* * *

Ra's and Talia agree to train me.

I'm not stupid enough to think it's selfless, or that Ra's doesn't have some alternate plan that he's keeping to himself. Probably something to do with using me as his own personal weapon, considering that I'm already Batman-trained, and now I lack any kind of ability to feel grief, or fear, or guilt. I'd probably make a fantastic assassin, if I didn't still remember my morals.

Turns out those don't have all that much to do with my emotions.

It's not like I'm going to feel the guilt of breaking the rules Bruce set for me, but there's something in me that's still unsettled by it. Something trained and encouraged to think that if I cross over that line there's never any going back, no matter what. That if I dare consider killing anyone, if I somehow go _through_ with it, suddenly I'll be some kind of villainous, cold-blooded murderer. Worse, that suddenly I won't be good for anything but being put away in a cell.

But then, I already crossed that line didn't I?

There was that rapist piece of _scum_ , Garzonas. I didn't kill him, but I thought about it, considered it, _almost_ did it. When it counted, when I had him on that roof and it was just the two of us, I shouted at him and he _did_ slip. But I could have caught him, and I didn't. I chose to let him die. I expected to feel guilt over that, especially after Bruce confronted me about what happened before he got there, but I didn't. He deserved it.

I still believe that.

So maybe, I don't have to stick to Bruce's code. Maybe I can walk both worlds and not have to be condemned to just one. I can kill the people who deserve it, stop them from hurting anyone else, but not become a real villain like Bruce was always convinced that someone who slipped would. I can _do_ that. Especially now that there's nothing in my way to make sure I don't.

I can save Gotham, how it _needs_ to be saved. By putting a bullet in the head of anyone who threatens its citizens, by making _sure_ that the only crime in town is safe for everyone involved. I'm not naive and stupid enough to think that you can really erase crime. For god's sake, I grew up in _Crime Alley_. I've seen what happens when people try and 'erase' crime. When _Bruce_ took apart one gang, all it did was make another gang carve a bloody path through what was left to take control of the abandoned territory.

That's all that _ever_ happens.

This isn't an ideal world, and idealistic views don't have a place in it. Bruce can think about his precious world where no one ever needs to be hurt again all he likes, but that's not _realistic_. Realistically, the best Gotham can hope for is a crime empire that's run smoothly, safely, efficiently. No drugs to anyone but consenting adults, no theft from small businesses or anyone who can't afford to replace the product or cash, no more illegal prostitution where half the time the pimps are violent and the whores have disease. It wouldn't even be that _hard_.

Make examples of any gang member that steps out of line, run everything with the absolute _minimum_ of violence. A quick bullet to anyone who tries to take over or plan a coup. Enforce testing, safe practices with clients of sex workers, and _only_ the people actually interested in having it be their line of work. _Protect_ them. No more violence, no more death for anyone who doesn't deserve it, but there's still profit. It would be _easy_ for anyone with an inside knowledge of how the practices run.

I could do it.

The idea _seizes_ me, shortening my breath in the middle of the acrobatics routine Ra's has me in the middle of. He's reading a book, across the room, but he almost instantly glances up at me as my landing from the midair, tucked flip comes down a little awkwardly. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make me wobble and scowl a little bit.

"Repeat that section," he commands, absently.

Instead of obeying Ra's I turn and stride across the room to stand in front of him. The adrenaline rush and sweat of a workout isn't excitement, or anticipation, but I could mistake it for that if I didn't know better. He looks up, one eyebrow arched, and lowers the book a touch.

"What if I took over Gotham's crime?" I offer, before he can ask me what I'm doing. The eyebrow lifts a little higher, and then he snaps the book shut and sets it aside on the small bench.

"Interesting idea. Have you been here long enough to acquire a taste for running a criminal empire yourself, Jason?" Ra's looks at ease, of course, but there _is_ a hint of intrigue in his eyes. Maybe I'm not totally nuts.

"You know I haven't." I swipe my hand across my forehead, wiping away sweat and narrowing my eyes a touch, brushing away the anger that rises every time I even think of Bruce. Who didn't save me, replaced me, left my death _unavenged_. "The way Batman runs things doesn't work, I know that. Everyone breaks out of prison, one gang takes over for another. Nothing ever gets better."

Ra's doesn't offer anything to confirm or deny what I've said, so I continue. "So what if I take over one of the gangs? Take over _Gotham?_ Make sure that everything's run so no one gets hurt but the people who deserve it? No kids, no innocent or unwilling victims. But murdering psychopaths, the _Joker?_ Don't they deserve it? Wouldn't that be better?"

Ra's studies me, silent, and then finally says, "That is your choice to make." There's no disapproval in his voice, and that's practically an encouragement when it comes to Ra's. I've learned that much. "However, the Detective will not simply allow you to do this. You understand that?"

My hands clench, anger returning to my chest. "Isn't that what this has been about?" I counter, and then shake my head. "You told me I could stay until I decided what I was going to do; this is it. I'm going to fix Gotham in a way that _works_ , that actually _helps_. Not how he _wants_ it to work." I force my hands out, and draw my mouth into a grin that I know isn't much more than a baring of teeth, since the only thing behind it is anger. "It's not like I'm going to feel anything; I'm pretty uniquely qualified to be the bad guy for a good reason."

"They won't thank you for it."

"Then to _hell_ with them. If they can't see they're not doing any good—" I cut off, not sure how to end that sentence, and then shake my head again. " _I_ can see it. Won't feel their rejection anyway."

"You'll have to kill," is the next thing Ra's points out.

I step forward, sinking to my knees without hesitation and looking up at him for a moment before bowing my head and closing my eyes. "Then let me stay, and teach me how." There are several long moments of silence, and then fingers touch my cheek and tilt my head up, and I flick my eyes back open to meet the gaze trained down at me.

"And what do I get out of this, Jason?" he asks, with a hint of amusement.

"Don't play games with me," I snap back. "You've _already_ considered it, or you would have said no and kicked me out instead of asking."

"Say it anyway," he demands. "Humor me, and _prove_ that you understand it as I do."

It's a pretty obvious sign of my soullessness that I can kneel at Ra's al Ghul's feet and face him down without any fear, without even the _thought_ of fear. "If you train me, I'll keep him busy. You know as _soon_ as he figures out who I am he'll focus on me. As long as you're subtle you could have _months_ where he won't have the time or energy to stop whatever you want to do. But that's not enough for you, and we both know it. So if you teach me, no matter _what_ happens, as long as you're not threatening the world, Gotham's innocents, or the Bats' lives, I don't care what you do. I won't turn what you teach me back on you."

Ra's' smirk is almost proud, and he lets go of my face and leans back against the wall. "Very well, Jason. You have a deal."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! So here we set the tone for this particular story. One chapter from Jason's PoV, and then one from another. In this case, Bruce! This one is also a bit of a flashback, but it ties in pretty quickly. Hope you enjoy!

The bike rumbles beneath me, tight between my legs. I'm gripping the handles too tightly, I know I am, and I didn't take the time to put the helmet on — I _couldn't_ — so the wind is rushing against my clenched jaw, cold from the speed.

The tires screech and it nearly skids out from underneath me as I take a corner too fast, too sharply. I ignore the danger, ignore the chatter of Nightwing in my ear and his worried tone, almost _frantic_. I shut it all out, focus on the GPS in front of me and the directions. It's not far now, I know that. Just a few minutes, just a few _minutes_.

Hold on, _please_.

I gun the bike a little faster, not listening to Alfred, or Nightwing, or Barbara, or _anyone_ that's on the coms. I can't. There isn't time. The Joker has him, he's got _Jason_ , and there were threats, clues… I don't know what's happened to him, and the not-knowing is a tight ball of worry and fear in my stomach. Only tight and not raging through my mind because I can't afford it right now. I need to be focused, I need to be _fast_ ; I need to get there before the Joker does something to Jason that I can't fix. He's probably just captured him, right? Tied him up with some ornate execution planned like he always does.

Not like what he did to Barbara. _Please_ , let it not be anything like that.

The Joker is insane, but he's vicious and he's not to be underestimated. Jason is very good at his job, he's a good fighter and he's smart, quick-thinking, stubborn above all else, but with the Joker? I'm not sure that he'll be alright, not if the clown manages to captures him, and that's already happened. After what just happened to Barbara I _can't_ let it happen again, I have to stop it. I _have_ to. Jason will be alright, he _has_ to be. How could I possibly allow myself to let this happen _twice?_

The GPS beeps an alarm at me, and I focus in on the warehouse in front of me. Just a few thousand feet, just a few seconds until I can kick in the door and get him out of there. I can do this, he'll be alright. Jason will be _fine_.

"I've found it," I growl into the coms, cutting through the chatter and speeding up. "Alfred, prepa—”

The explosion feels like a _nightmare_.

My bike skids out from under me as I wrench the wheel to the side and duck my head, jerk my cape around to try and not get enveloped in the ball of flame. A piece of metal sheeting slams into me, knocks me to the ground, and my shoulder aches like something's damaged but I don't pay it any mind. I curl beneath the protection of the metal sheet, hearing pieces of rubble bounce off it, and only push up when the sound of the explosion has died off. My ears are ringing, I ache from the impact with both the metal and the street, but I shove my protection aside and get to my feet. My stomach draws tight as I look around, my teeth grinding together.

The warehouse is in ruins, some pieces still on fire and others smoking, and there’s barely even a shell of the building's infrastructure left intact. There aren't any signs of bodies, no blood or pieces that are obvious at a first glance, but Jason was _here_. I know he was. Know he _is_ , I correct myself, viciously. I rush forward, single-minded and ignoring the flames that lick at my heels, the dread in my chest urging me _faster_ , _**faster**_.

I reach the center of the explosion and look around, and at a first sweep nothing catches my eye. The voices in my ear are starting to return, worried and high-pitched, _shouting_ , but I ignore them. No time for that, I have to find—

A piece of red cape.

I lunge forward, digging my gloves into the rubble and throwing pieces aside. Revealing more cape, a twisted arm, a shoulder, and then a boy's face. Bruised, burned, with blood dried across one side and that eye swollen shut. I yank one glove off to press my hand against his throat, feel for the pulse that the logical side of me knows won't be there, but I _have_ to check anyway. I can’t give up. I was already too late to stop this, or to stop whatever the Joker did to him, but a desperate part of me _begs_ that I’ll somehow be in time to save his life.

The costume is in shreds, his left arm is obviously broken, and what’s left of the suit is stained with dirt, blood, and the scorch marks of the explosion. What skin does show through is a variety of colors that speaks of bruising, broken bones, and internal bleeding. His chest isn't rising.

The skin underneath my fingers is warm from the explosion, but there’s no movement within it.

Slowly, I tug my glove back on and reach for his arm. Something clicks and grinds in the joint of his shoulder as I pull him out of the rubble, and I gentle my touch even though I know he can't feel it. I know there's no point. His head hangs back, the black mask cracked at one side and shattered, blood painted in trails across his face from what looks like a broken nose, a lip split in several different places. His teeth are bloody, behind that. Not all of them are still there.

I pull him to my chest, ducking my head — even as the horror fights for control — so I can study him. I have to see if I can tell what happened, what was done to him, what I _failed_ at protecting him from. He's just a _boy_ , barely fifteen, what was I _thinking_ bringing him into this?

His skin shows signs of being beaten, and the burns cover some of it but not much. He might have been dead when the explosion went off, I might have been too late regardless. Maybe. _Hopefully_ , says a part of me, even though the rest cringes. There are dark metal cuffs around his wrists, but the chain between is snapped, even if the wounds beneath them look like he fought until he tore his own skin apart on the sharp metal of the cuffs. That tells me… It tells me that his fingers were broken early on, not later. It tells me that he didn't have the dexterity left to pick the cuffs, so he just fought them instead. That he struggled, at least instinctively.

It says a lot of things that I don't think I can handle thinking about right now.

Just to make sure, just to _know_ , I withdraw the hand I have under his knees and lower it to his left side, in just behind his waist and nearly down at his hip. I find the lump underneath the costume, and dip my fingers into the hidden pouch to retrieve the quarter sized piece of metal. Memory tells me it shines, that it's lopsided and imperfect, but so polished by the idle fingers of a boy that it was always the brightest thing in the room. That it was perfect just how it was, and that I should _never_ touch it.

The piece of metal I pull out is streaked with scorch marks and stained with blood, dull beneath that like it's just another piece of shrapnel, and there's a crack through the middle that nearly splits it in two. Pain burns in my chest, and I close my hand around the metal — Jason's container, the vehicle for his _soul_ — and lean down into my son. Into the boy I failed to protect, that _I_ put in harm's way. How could I? How could I have _ever_ let Jason on the streets, around the Joker, around _any_ of the people that call me their enemy?

What gave me the right to put a boy like him in danger? To get him _killed?_

Slowly, I realize that Dick, Alfred, and Barbara are still talking in my ears. Dick's shouting estimations of how long it will take him to get there, how fast, just _minutes_ because he flew here the moment he knew Jason had gone missing. Barbara is telling Dick my coordinates, urging him to hurry with panic in her voice that makes me think she's one step from a breakdown. The Joker, what he did to _her_ … Why didn't I learn?

Alfred's voice cuts through the rest, _"Sir, **please**. Answer."_

"He's dead," I manage to say, drawing on the last of my strength before I pull Jason closer to my chest and tighten my fingers around the metal in my hand. "The warehouse exploded. Just a few hundred feet. Too _late_. Just a few more _seconds_."

The coms are silent, but I don't need to hear their voices to hear the accusation. Guilt closes my eyes, hangs my head down against the strands of Jason's blood-stiff hair, and I can still feel too much of what's wrong. The unnatural twist of his arm, the rough edges of the crack in the piece of metal, the lack of breath against my jaw, and the lack of his grin, his laughter, and his eternal hope that everyone would be alright.

I stay there, feeling him cool in my arms, until there's the crunch of rubble underneath boots.

I whip my head up, ready to _beat_ anyone who's _daring_ to interrupt my time with Jason, _daring_ to intrude on me and my _son_. A snarl curls my mouth before I register the figure standing about ten feet away. Dick, in Nightwing black and blue, his jaw tight and his shoulders raised. The snarl disappears, and Dick moves closer, sinks down to kneel in front of me.

" _No_ ," he whispers, head turned down towards Jason. "He's not— There's no chance?" For a miracle, or CPR, or any other trick in the book I know to extend a life or bring one back from the edge of death.

Slowly, fighting the stiffness in my own muscles, I turn my palm up and uncurl the hand clenched around what was Jason's container. Dick's breath catches, and I can see his shoulders bow forward in pain, his hands flex like he wants to wrap them around someone's throat or hit something. I'll take it, if it's me he wants to hit. How could he _not_ want to after what I let happen? God, _Jason_.

Dick's right hand slips back, subconsciously, to touch the invisible line of the pouch on his upper thigh. To feel the shape of a frayed piece of rope that will always be the most important thing in the world to him. Trauma reshapes a container, changes what the item is that holds a person's soul. I don't know what Dick's was before his parents were killed, but I know that when I spoke to him he was clutching that piece of rope, and everyone knew. I went through the same thing.

I don't keep mine on me, and I suffer for it sometimes when I go abroad and the connection strains thin, but I manage. It's too dangerous for me to take with me; the things someone could do with _my_ soul in their hands… It's not worth the risk.

Dick and Jason, they always kept theirs close. Jason wore it against his skin for a long time, strapped in beneath his suit, and on a string around his waist when he wasn't in costume. No one asked, no one needed to be told why he did that. We'd all stopped enough violent moments in Crime Alley, one person helpless to another under the power of their soul being held in the other person's hands. Eventually he stopped being quite so protective of it; let it stay in a pouch in his suit and wore it on a vial around his neck instead, hanging beneath his shirt, but he never stopped carrying it around everywhere he went. He couldn't.

Dick reaches out, touching Jason's hair and brushing it back and away from his face. It stays in the strange, spiked position that Dick's fingers leave it in, too stiff to curl back down like it should. Dick looks horrified, looks furious, looks a hundred different things that I'm not sure I can understand right now.

"The Joker," he finally says, choking the words out. "Did you see—?"

I shake my head, understanding his bitten off question. "No."

_"The woman?"_ Barbara asks in our ears, speaking shallow and strained, obviously just barely keeping away from a panic attack. _"Jason's mother? She was there, wasn't she?"_

Right, yes. Jason's mother, Sheila. The person we came here to find, the person he met and they were so _happy_ for the moments I stuck around. I gave them their privacy, of course, but I didn't know the Joker was so close. I didn't know that he was going to—

" _Bruce_ ," Dick stresses, reaching a little further and touching the shoulder of the arm that I have curled in underneath Jason's shoulders, holding him up. "Is she here? Do you know?"

"Didn't see anything," I manage, dragging my head up to look at Dick. He deserves that much. He deserves _more_ than that. "Only scanned once before I saw him, I don't know…” If he's in this kind of shape, what about her? If she was even still here, could the Joker have possibly left her alive? If he didn't kill her, did the explosion?

"I'll look," Dick offers, and gets to his feet before I can say anything. Can tell him: _no_ , I'll do it, I _have_ to. "I got here in the jet, B. Make sure he's—” Dick cuts off, chokes a moment, and then he's standing and moving.

I understand.

Slowly, I gather myself to my feet. I hook my other arm back underneath Jason's knees, trying to ignore the way he's hard to move, how rigor mortis is kicking in and stiffening him. I look around until I find the jet — one of the bigger ones, not just the smaller plane that I use around Gotham — and then head for it. My boots crunch over the rubble, shifting dirt and pieces of metal around beneath them. It's not a far walk, but with Jason in my arms, with Jason's broken _soul_ in my hand, it feels like forever. It feels like the walk to my judgment, the circle of people that will be waiting to tell me that I _failed_.

The ramp is down, and it still feels like a nightmare as I walk up and duck underneath the low doorway to step inside of the jet. It's just tall enough for me to stand all the way up, and my gut clenches as I see the gurney already set up and waiting. There are nearby medical supplies too, all of it strapped or tied down to not move or fall over when the jet takes off. Dick wasn't expecting a body, none of us were, but he was ready. Of course he was.

Carefully, I set Jason down on the metal table. There are straps, and I do the bare minimum because I can't _bear_ to see him tied down any more than that. Even the straps at his ankles and wrists feels like too much, too damning. Jason was never supposed to be anything but bright and free, he was _never_ supposed to be hurt and tied down like this. Not ever. The Joker was never supposed to get hands on him or anything even remotely like that.

The _Joker_.

_"B!"_ Dick shouts in my ear, and immediately continues, without waiting for my response, _"She's alive. She's here. Get down here, **now!** "_

I spin on my heel and go, ducking back under the doorframe and skidding down the ramp, running on legs that feels slow and clumsy, too large and stiff. But the need to see her, to know what happened, to see the woman that was the last person Jason ever saw in the world, is too much to allow myself to stop just because I'm stiff and not running quite right.

Dick's an obvious spot in the ruins, blue among the brown and orange of the flames, and the occasional sheet of grey from metal. I run to him, and he's got a woman in his arms. Blonde hair, bloody and burned but not bearing the same kind of marks that Jason was. No beating, just the explosion. But there's a spreading stain on her side that's already soaked through with blood, and it's obvious that whatever she was hit with, or impaled on, it's not something that either of us can fix.

I sink to my knees next to Dick, who glances up at me, and then Sheila's eyes open and she fixes them on me. Brown eyes, and she's so _unlike_ Jason I don't know how they're related. "Batman," she whispers, hoarse and strained. No pain though, clearly she's too far past whatever happened to feel the pain she could. Shock, to some degree. There's no way we can save her.

"Sheila, we need you to tell us what happened."

She shivers, trembles a moment more, and I can see tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she gasps, "I'm so sorry!" She tries to reach for me, and I meet her hand halfway because she can't quite get to me. She's not strong enough. "The Joker, he was blackmailing me, made me give him the supplies." The tears run down her cheeks. "I never wanted Jason, never wanted a son, and my whole life was— It wasn't what I wanted, not any of it. I didn't see him as my son, I _swear_."

Dick's face tightens, and he looks a step away from contracting his arms around the woman and killing her faster, causing pain for what she's implying. "What happened?" he demands, low and dangerous.

Her eyes flick briefly up to him, and then back to me. "I sold him out to the Joker." My heart drops, something in me starts to snap with a resounding _crack_. "I didn't know what he was planning, I _didn't_. He knocked Jason out, tied him up and brought us both here. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't think, but then he tied me up too and he had this _crowbar_."

Dick is paling a little bit.

"Jason fought the whole time, he was so alive the _whole_ _time_. Even when the Joker left us there, he tried to shield me from the blast. After everything I did to him, everything I _made_ happen. It was all my fault. All of it. I'm so _sorry_." Her tears are drying, but her breath is coming shorter too, shallower. It won't be long, I know it. "He was such a good boy. Such a good _son_. I should have known what I had."

I can't do anything but stare at her, shock and a dangerous numbness sliding into every crevice of my chest. I _can't_ … How _could_ she? To _Jason?_ How could anyone ever sell someone out to that murdering clown? How could that _possibly_ seem like a good idea?

"B," Dick says softly. "Let go."

I click back into myself, looking up and then following the tilt of his head down to the clench of my hand around hers. She's limp, her head back in a graceful arch that would look purposeful if her eyes weren't still open, staring blindly back into the ruins of the warehouse. She's gone, and I let go of her hand with a sudden burst of revulsion. She sold Jason out, she got him beaten and _killed_ , and I don't want to touch her for even a second longer. Not to help, not even to give her the burial _everyone_ deserves. She got my son _killed_.

No, _I_ got him killed by putting him in that suit. All she did was hand the Joker the end of the noose I’d already looped around his neck.

Dick is getting to his feet, and numbly I follow him up. My legs aren't steady, and rationally I know that I'm in a kind of shock, but that doesn't leave me any more prepared to deal with it. It’s a knowledge that cuts deep inside the fog overtaking my mind. Jason deserved so much more than what I let happen to him. I _failed_ him, I put him in a dangerous situation, and then I dropped the ball and left him unprotected. His death is my fault, it's on my hands. I should have known better. I should have protected him, saved him, kept him far away from any of this. I should have taken him off duty the _second_ that Barbara was injured. I should have learned from that.

How did I justify to myself that _any_ of this was the right thing? None of them should be in costume. Not Jason, or Barbara, or Dick. God, I _have_ to make Dick stop before he ends up like the two of them. Or worse. I can't just let this happen a third time. He _has_ to stop.

I look up to tell him that, to get it out of my mouth and make him listen, but Dick's already sweeping by me with Sheila in his arms. Slowly, numbly, I turn to follow. He takes her to the jet, slipping inside, and his steps falter for a moment but he keeps moving after that brief hesitation. I start up the ramp, and Dick turns back to me.

"B, I need you to go get the bike, alright?" He looks worried, my mind says, and I manage a nod to tell him that I've understood. It's _hard_ to turn back around and head for the edge of the warehouse's ruins, but I force myself to.

The bike isn't hard to find, and it's still running. I brush rubble off of it and drag it up, pushing it towards the jet and through the uneven field of the remnants of the warehouse. Dick meets me at the bottom of the ramp, and silently pushes me out of the way to take over and bring the bike up into the jet. He secures it against one of the walls as I come up the ramp, and immediately turns around to take my arm and pull me towards the two seats at the front of the jet. The pilot seats.

"Dick," I manage, finally finding my voice and pulling to a stop. He looks back at me, and I grab his arm and try not to squeeze hard enough to be painful. "You _have_ to stop," I tell him.

His jaw tightens, and there's something like anger on his face as he pulls away from my grip and shakes his head. "Not right now, B. We can talk about this later." He heads for the seat on the right, and I follow him as my mind focuses down to this one thing.

"No, not later, _now_." he leans in, flicks one of the controls to bring the ramp up, and then I reach in and take his arm again, pulling him around to look at me. "Dick, _please_ , if you—”

" _No!_ " he shouts, and then his hands are shoving at my chest and pushing me away from him. "Don't you _dare_ tell me what to do right now, Bruce. You need to _focus!_ I am _not_ having this conversation halfway around the world from home with my brother—” Dick stiffens, draws in a sharp breath, and then all the energy drains out of him and he steps back and nearly falls back into the chair. Both his hands raise and rake through his hair. " _God_ , Jason."

I step forward again, reaching out to touch my living son. " _Dick_ ," I say softly, brushing my hand over his left arm, and he flinches away from me. It _hurts_ , and I yank my hand away and nearly step back.

"No," he says sharply, straightening up to look at me, his shoulders drawing back again. " _Sit down_ , Bruce. Strap in. We're _not_ talking about this until we're back home, understand me?" There's a set to his jaw that's angry and strained, and I want to argue, I want to wrap my arms around my eldest son and hold him tight, _never_ let him out into danger ever again, but I know better.

Instead I step back and take the other chair, and carefully buckle on the harness that will keep me in the seat. I can see Dick doing the same from the corner of my eye, and I watch as he starts up the jet and double checks all of the readings.

"I'm sorry," is what comes out of my mouth, and he stills for a second.

Just long enough to drag in a breath, and he doesn't even look over at me when he answers, " _Don't_ , Bruce. Just don't."

* * *

Gotham somehow gets darker. We catch the Joker, lock him inside Arkham, but it's a victory that feels hollow when he grins at us the whole time. He knows he's hurt us — _again_ , whispers a part of my mind, and you _let_ him — and he knows that he'll get out of Arkham, he always does. A part of me _burns_ to take one of my batarangs and cut his throat, just to _end_ it, but with some difficulty — and with Dick's hand at my shoulder, clenched tight against my cape and suit — I hold back.

Dick stays for a while, but eventually the tension between us turns into shouts and a nearly physical confrontation. I _try_ to get him to see reason but he refuses to stop wearing the persona of Nightwing, and when I press him he throws in my face that's it's _too_ late to try and protect him now. He shouts and spits at me that he's an adult, he _made_ his choice, and if I was going to try and protect him it should have been while he was still Robin. It hurts, but I know he's _right_. I still try and get him to give up the costume, to come back to being just my son, but then he turns it on me and asks if he gave up Nightwing, would I give up Batman?

I _can't_ , and he knows it.

Dick leaves for his own city, Bludhaven; just next door but already too far away. Out of my reach, too far for me to protect him the way I can in Gotham. The way I _should_ have protected all of my wards. He communicates with me — throws leads and clipped questions about how I'm doing — through Alfred, and it hurts but I draw farther into my work and try to ignore it. Barbara barely speaks to me either, and when she does it's about a case. Any hint of more and the connection fails, every time.

They're my responsibilities, and I care for both of them _so_ much, but I don't try and bring them back. They deserve their anger, and I deserve to be blamed. I deserve every moment of silence, and the glass case reminding me every _second_ that I failed to protect one of the most important people in my world. That I let a psychopath beat and kill him, and didn't get there in time. That I was late.

I deserve it.

They both show up to the funeral, at least. Barbara in her wheelchair, with her father, and Dick in a black suit that's already drenched through with rain by the time he arrives. Lowering Jason into the ground, _watching_ him get buried beneath the wet soil, is an _agony_ like no other. Dick's hands are tight fists, clenched hard enough that he must be hurting himself, and Alfred is stiff and silent behind me. None of us say a word until it's done, and the digger leaves.

There are several long moments of silence between all of us, and then Dick turns to me. He steps close, beneath the shelter of the umbrella Alfred is holding over me, and I take in a startled breath when his arms wrap around me. He's soaked through, cold, but his head is against my shoulder and I take the moment of comfort that I can. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight, turning my head into his wet hair and clinging tight for just a few seconds. It doesn't feel like a fix, and it's _definitely_ not a substitute for all of the words that hover between us — shouted or spat, and the ones we never said — but at least it's something.

"It's not your fault," Dick says softly, quietly. "It was _never_ your fault, Bruce." He has no idea what he's talking about, but it's nice to hear anyway. All of it is nice to hear, even if it's all a lie.

He pulls away, and I can see the grave past his shoulder. "That's a nice sentiment," I answer, just as quietly, "but I'm the one who put him in that suit." Made him Robin; made him a _target_.

Dick grips my arms at the elbow, shifting to be right in front of me, and catches my gaze. There's pain in his eyes, grief, guilt, but also a hard line of anger. " _No_ , B. Don't you _dare_ blame anyone but the Joker for what happened to him. _I_ was just as capable as you were of making him quit that suit, and that was _not_ _at all_. Don't you _remember_ Jason, B? He would _never_ have let you take that suit away from him; he _didn't_. He needed it as much as I did when I was a kid." His hands squeeze, and his jaw tightens a bit. "He was unlucky, that's all that happened, B. It could have happened to any of us, _any_ of us could have been the one in that warehouse. You didn't force him to become Robin, B, he _chose_ to. He _loved_ it, and somewhere under all that self-loathing you know that."

He takes a deep breath, dips his head for a moment, and then lets go of me. "I said some really awful things to you, B, and I'm sorry for that. But I won't give up Nightwing, just like I don't expect you to give up Batman. I'm sorry, but that's my choice." His eyes meet mine again. "When you can accept that, I'll be in Bludhaven. And if you ever need help, I'll be here. All you have to do is call."

He hesitates a moment, pauses, and then nods and turns around. His shoulders cringe up as he steps back out into the rain, but he doesn't let it stop him. Dick never lets anything stop him, I suppose.

My throat feels locked tight, and there's the burn of tears in my eyes that I hold back from pure stubbornness. I manage to glance to the side, to Barbara, and she meets my gaze and nods. She doesn't come speak to me like Dick did, but her father, Jim Gordon, is standing over her shoulder so I understand that.

I never expected either of them to talk to me. Not after what I let happen. I don't deserve to have either of them, and they don't deserve to be burdened with me and my failures. It's better for everyone if we stay separated. They can move on, and I can watch them from a distance and make sure they're safe.

I won't let anyone hurt Dick or Barbara again. They'll go through me first.

* * *

Then there's _Tim_.

Tim who pushes into our lives with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Who establishes himself in the empty role of Robin and refuses to leave, no matter how many times I tell him how dangerous it is, no matter how many times I _refuse_ to let him have the title. No matter how hard I push, he stays.

He tells me to my face that I _need_ a Robin, and that Dick helps but he's not enough. Alfred backs him up, and somehow even Dick comes around to the idea. I never really had a choice in it.

Tim is smart, smarter than either Dick or — the name still makes my heart clench, my eyes flicker closed for a moment — Jason, and he's not as immediately physically capable as they were but he does well with what he has. He works hard, and he devours everything all of us can teach him and asks for more. I don't let him out as Robin, not for a long time, but eventually the hard, paranoid ball in my chest — that screams if I let him out there he'll get hurt, just like Jason — loosens. It's months of training first, but eventually I let him out onto the streets.

He does well, the first night. And then every night after that for weeks, then months.

It's easier. It's not the same, he's _nothing_ like Jason, but it's good in a different way. Reluctantly, I decide that he's right. I might not like it, or even want it, but there's a part of me that needs someone else to balance it out. Without a Robin I get reckless, I push myself too hard without someone else to keep me in check, and I take risks that I shouldn't. But with someone else at my side I have to watch out for them, and that keeps me from pushing a patrol for too long, or pressing a chase when it's better to slip away into the shadows or come back another time.

Life gets easier.

I can't ever forget Jason, not with the memorial case in the cave still there, but that's good. Jason was my failure — too aggressive, too motivated by anger and not a desire to do good, and I didn't know how to handle that — and I should never forget what happened to him. Tim never asks about the case, but sometimes I catch him looking at the suit inside, the plaque, and the small, cracked piece of metal. I don't know what his expression is in those moments, but he must have gotten the story from someone because he seems to know it. He never brings Jason up, and sometimes I want to warn him not to be reckless, but I can't bring myself to use Jason as an example. It was my failing, not his, and I won't ruin his memory by using it like that.

Dick and Barbara come back into my life too, and they bring a touch of joy with them that helps soothe the last of the pain. Our family isn't complete, there's a gash through the middle where there should be a wild head of black hair and a rough grin, but it's slowly healing. We're all injured in some way or another, but we fill in the gaps in each other. We're family.

Dick doesn't leave Bludhaven behind completely, and Barbara can never go back to being Batgirl, but they find their own ways of working around it. Dick gives up the Teen Titans, handing the reins down to Tim and making way for a new Robin, and Barbara becomes Oracle. Our tech expert, eye in the sky, and general purveyor of all information in Gotham. Or anywhere else she can get her bugs to, which is a surprisingly wide range. When Tim is with the Titans, Dick fills in as a partner on patrols, and Barbara is a constant voice in all our ears. We all do what we can.

It almost feels like things are back to normal, or as normal as Gotham ever gets. The manor doesn't quite feel full, but there are times when that empty room, with its locked door, doesn't feel quite as damning as it has before. If I do pause in front of it and rest my hand in the center, it's not to murmur an apology that will never be enough. Instead, I just offer a prayer to whoever's listening that whatever kind of afterlife there is, Jason is happy in it. He deserves that, no matter his imperfections or my failure to help him fix them.

Eventually we hit a truly quiet time.

Most of my longterm enemies are locked away in Arkham for the time being, and there's something going on with Black Mask's gang but I haven't quite figured it out yet. Despite that minor disturbance, it's quieter than it's been in a very long time. That always makes a part of me brace and wait for the oncoming storm, but for now I call in some early nights and spend more time in the Cave, working through older cases and generally catching up on all of the minutia. Tim leaves for the weekend, to his practice with the Teen Titans, so Dick takes up residence at the manor.

"Know what it is yet?" he asks me the first night, leaning over the back of my chair.

There are a hundred different things he could mean, but I default to the most likely. The man interfering with Black Mask's business. "Somewhat." I flick into what little information that Barbara and I have collected, pulling it up on the main screen to bring Dick up to speed. "This," I gesture towards the blurry picture taking up most of the screen, "is the man who's been causing the disturbance. Apparently he's been moving in on Black Mask's organization, taking pieces for himself."

The man is tall, even if the shot doesn't provide any framework for a height comparison. Broad in the shoulders, with the narrow waist of someone with defined musculature. He's wearing a pair of reinforced combat boots, dark grey cargo pants, a white t-shirt, black gloves with the glint of reinforced knuckles, and a brown leather jacket. The things that make him dangerous, as opposed to just another man, are the holstered gun on his right thigh, the sheathed knife on his left, and the red helmet covering anything that could be used to identify him.

"He calls himself the Red Hood," I offer, and I can see Dick's arms cross as he straightens up.

"That's been a lot of people, hasn't it? Didn't the Joker use that name at one point?" That's not confirmed, but it's a heavy suspicion of mine that I've never quite been able to prove. There _was_ a man who called himself the Red Hood, and it was an accident but he tripped, fell into a vat of chemicals. Their voices were similar, but I never saw the face of the man so I can't know if he's the Joker or not.

"Possibly. There have been quite a few gangs who used the persona as a guise for their leader, this may just be another."

"You don't sound convinced," Dick points out, and I watch the faint shadow of his reflection in the screens.

"This is the best shot we have of him," I say in answer. "He was in the middle of leaping between two buildings, this is a lucky shot from someone's phone, and he was just in the background of it." The shot is blurry, pixelated, but it's easy to see what he's in the middle of doing if you're clued in. Or you saw the whole picture. The arch of his body and extension of his hands in front of him says he's about to duck into a roll to dispel the momentum of the jump.

Dick pauses, then gives a small laugh. "Well, that makes things harder. What, is he a metahuman, too fast…? Why aren't there any good pictures?"

"He seems to know where the surveillance is, ours as well as traffic cameras and such, and he's _very_ familiar with the city." I tap my fingers against the console, leaning back and considering the picture and the assorted information. A rough description based on reports, the list of crimes and operations Barbara and I either suspect or know he's behind, and some background files that deal with where he's been around the world. "Apparently he was in Hong Kong before this — some of our reports match theirs — but he was much quieter than he's being here."

"Test run, do you think?" If this man knows Gotham as well as he seems to — which implies that he's a local — he probably would have wanted to try out whatever this game plan is somewhere else first, to make sure it would get off the ground. A local would know that Gotham doesn't take kindly to people who make mistakes, and even Hong Kong would be an easier playing field.

A local would know not to go up against Black Mask without thinking they have a serious chance, which means that this man considers himself more dangerous than one of my gallery of rogues.

"Seems likely." I glance back, finding Dick's gaze and following it to where it's trained up at the information displayed on the screen. "I'll forward the information to you. For now, keep an eye out for him. If we can track him down, maybe we can put an end to this before he starts a gang war."

That's the best case scenario. If this 'Red Hood' keeps pressing Black Mask the way he is, things are going to get vicious and bloody very quickly. But if we can catch him before things get that far, everything should fall back into place without too much death on either side. The status quo isn't a _good_ scenario, but it's better than this man provoking an outright war trying to take over Black Mask's organization. That's going to end up on a bloody road, and with a lot of corpses. Not all of them will be criminals.

"Got it. Heading out for a patrol tonight?" Dick's hand on my shoulder stops it from being all business, but his tone is crisp and no-nonsense. It's enough to start a thread of pride in my chest. My eldest, whatever I might have tried to force on him, and however I might have tried to make him quit while in my grief, is very good at his job. I know that now, without a doubt.

"In a couple of hours," I answer, sending a command to the computer to forward the information to Dick before I return to the rest of my work.

"Mind if I come with? We can split up, take a run through some of Old Gotham. Maybe we'll catch this Red Hood guy in the act somewhere." That sounds good.

"I never mind your company, Dick." His hand squeezes down on my shoulder, and then he draws away.

"I'll go take a look at the files, Bruce. Let me know when you're ready to head out." I don't look back to watch Dick leave the Cave, but I don't have to.

The knowledge that he's here, and he's not leaving, is warm and comforting even if I'll never say that out loud. He's a bright spot in my life, just like Tim and Barbara, and I wouldn't trade the world for them. They're everything to me, and always will be. No matter what.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! So, I wanted to save the prompts I'm working on for this weekend (because the chance that I'm going to be able to keep up writing a story a day when I'm at work is not likely), so here's a regularly scheduled update. XD Enjoy!

The first time I kill someone it's totally unplanned. I'm halfway across the world from Gotham, trying out my new skills in Hong Kong and starting to build myself a financial base. I haven't killed yet, but then no one's been able to track me down and confront me, and what I've stolen hasn't had guards.

I asked for more from Ra's than just how to fight, and kill. I asked him to teach me how criminal empires work, how to intimidate, all the inner workings that I never got the experience to figure out. He taught me all the calculations, the moves, the _specific_ ways to frighten or coax people into obedience without having to be a bloody leader. He enforced that loyalty is better than fear, and sometimes even better than respect. I owe him a lot.

I'm heading over the top of a building — the red helmet on my head still new, slightly uncomfortable — and there's a shriek of fear from the alley down next to me. There are _so_ many alleys here, built close and crowded even more so than my old neighborhoods, and it's safer and easier to travel rooftops than try and navigate through them. But, still, the shriek stills me. Nothing comes with the pause, no fear or any real sense or desire to investigate, but I'm getting used to that. I know I _should_ , so I head for the edge of the roof and lean over, peering down into the darkness.

There's two struggling figures below me, one bent halfway backwards on a stack of crates, and I watch for a second before activating the night vision on my helmet with a tap to the controls on my belt. Everything filters green, sharpens, and I'm not prepared for the sharp burst of rage that takes over my mind at the sight. A man, gripping the wrists and shoving between the legs of a longer-haired woman, and she's putting up a fight but he's bigger, clearly stronger, and it's not enough.

I vault over the ledge without a thought, bending and absorbing the impact of the fall as I come to a crouch. It's a _second_ to stand and cross the distance, and I grip the man's shoulder and wrench, _flinging_ him back against the opposite wall. It's not far, he hits hard, and I spare a glance to make sure the woman is pulling together before turning him. She's got tears in her eyes, and blood running down her jaw from a split lip, but she's not in pieces and that's good enough.

The man — local ethnicity, shorter then me, smaller, with shaved close hair and eyes I can't tell the color of with my night vision still on — sneers at me, straightening off the wall. _"You're gonna regret that,"_ he snarls in a local dialect, and it's not exactly what Ra's taught me but it's close enough for me to understand. _"Don't you worry, honey, be back with you in a second!"_

My jaw clenches, and before any kind of rational part of my mind can kick in the anger swamps me. I draw the gun from its holster, strapped to my right thigh, click the safety off, and pull the trigger. Blood sprays the wall, and he collapses to the floor with a messy hole in his head.

I wait for something, _anything_ , and the anger fades but nothing replaces it. That's… I guess it's not so hard after all. I guess Ra's was right.

I click the safety back on and holster the gun, turning around to the woman. She's staring at me, wide-eyed, and she cringes when I take a step towards her. Immediately I backtrack, holding both hands up to show they're empty. _"It's alright,"_ I say into the silence, in the dialect of Chinese that _I_ know, _"I'm not going to hurt you."_ I slowly raise my hands and unclasp the helmet, knowing it's not the smartest move but wanting to prove that I'm just human, underneath it. _"Are you okay?"_

It's dark without my helmet, and I can only barely see her face, but I can see the movement as she stands up off the crates and wraps her arms around herself. _"Y-yes_ ," she stammers. _"Thank you."_

I'm not sure I should be thanked for the corpse behind me, but I try not to let that show on my face. It's not hard; there's nothing I'm feeling to hide. _"I can escort you home,"_ I offer instead, pressing my helmet in against my side, under my arm. _"If you want."_

She hesitates, tilts her head so I'm fairly sure she's looking behind me, and then nods. _"Yes, please."_ She takes a cautious step forward, and I meet her halfway across the tiny alley.

 _"Lead the way."_ I soften my voice, speak quietly, and try to make myself as completely non-threatening as possible. Hard, considering I'm at least a foot taller than her and about three times her size, but it seems to work at least a little bit.

She's not confident about it, but she does walk down the alley with only a bit of unsteadiness, and let me stay about a step and a half behind her. At the least she doesn't seem directly afraid of me, which is something. It's tempting to put the helmet back on, but I keep it off to keep her comfortable. I'm not well known enough to need to be really careful, not yet, and there's something in me that says I shouldn't upset her anymore. Even at cost to myself.

It turns out her door is only a few deserted alleys away, anyway. Not enough time for me to be in any real kind of danger, even if someone was watching me. She stops at her door, after unlocking it, and turns back to say another whispered 'thank you' before slipping inside. It shuts, firmly locking me outside, and I turn to leave without another word. Then I do tug the helmet back on, and get back to the rooftops by climbing up the side of a nearby building, the edges worn and rough enough that it's easy to get a grip.

It's not satisfaction, and I'm not stupid enough to mistake it as that, but there's some part of my mind that knows I did a good thing. Not just taking her home, but ending the bastard who was going to hurt her. It's _right_. If I'd let him go like Bruce or Dick would tell me to, he just would have found another victim. Their blood, maybe even their death, would have been on my hands. _Any_ victim, after that, would be my fault for letting him live. With him dead, it's done.

He can't hurt anyone, ever again, and the blood ends with him. That's better than the alternative.

Even if I'm an abomination, a soulless _thing_ , I can still do good. In fact, I can do it _better_ , more efficiently, without anything to hold me back.

Bruce and Dick can only go so far and do so much before the guilt will stop them, but I… I can go as far as I need to. If it's necessary, I can do it. There's nothing to stop me. It's not a fair trade-off, I would _never_ have chosen it myself, but now that I am this way why not take advantage?

I can be what Gotham _needs_. I'm already damned, and nothing Bruce or Dick can say to me will matter. I can't feel grief, or regret, or anything except the anger I'll use to drive myself. I can live off that, for a while.

I can do _good_.

* * *

Gotham puts up a bit of a fight, but I expected that. I shed a lot of blood in the first few weeks I'm there, with bullets, knives, and my own fists. Not all of it ends in a body bag, but most of it does. I know I've caught the gang's attention, and I know that Black Mask is slowly starting to turn and pay a bit of real attention to me.

I welcome it.

I bribe, coax, manipulate, and make examples of every gang member I run across, testing their loyalty and offering them new places under my leadership. Starting with the leaders of the drug trade. I put down my rules — no kids, consenting adults only — and most of them fall in line. Riding the fence for now, of course, but it's close enough that I don't care that they're not publicly declaring their allegiance. I don't expect them to, not until I've proven I'm more than just someone with ambition.

I move into shipping, weapons dealing, prostitution; _everything_ that I know Black Mask runs across the city.

It takes longer than I expected for Bruce to notice me. It's not until I've firmly established a foothold, when I'm starting to really threaten Black Mask and I've started using my enhanced ruthlessness to plan how to kill him outright, that the _Batman_ shows up for the first time.

It's not a big shipment, it's a plan I could easily go without succeeding at, but I haven't failed yet and I don't feel like breaking the streak. The familiar shadow of his jet, and the fall of him to the building below, catches my attention. I'm not inside with my men, in fact they don't even know that I'm watching, so I'm not directly in Bruce's line of sight. I'm a rooftop over, nearly beneath the ledge, and he apparently missed me on his approach.

I consider for a moment, shifting the rifle I have set up, and then turn it on him. It's easy to line up the shot, and he stays conveniently still for it as he lifts binoculars to his gaze and aims them down at the building below. The anger bites at my stomach, but I push it away and keep my breath and hands steady. Pulling the trigger barely seems different than any other time.

I can hear his shout from here, as the bullet rips through his costume and carves through his lower left arm, the binoculars falling off the edge of the building as he recoils. I can't see the blood from here, but he was still and I'm a _very_ good shot. It's just a graze, I shouldn't have hit any major veins or bone. It'll hurt, it'll bleed, but it shouldn't cripple or kill him.

Lining up the second shot is a little harder, but I take less time with it and his head is barely turning my direction when I pull the trigger again. Bolt-actions have a slightly better accuracy, but the distance is pretty minimal and I don't need that slight accuracy bonus over such a short distance. It won't get stuck in his flesh this way, either. The speed will make sure it embeds itself in the rooftop, giving him clean exit wounds to deal with and no more.

I want Bruce out of play, but I don't want him dead.

My second bullet takes him through the right calf, buckling that beneath him and slamming him to the rooftop even as he finds my figure. I abandon the rifle, getting to my feet and heading for his building. It's one swing of a cable and a rolled landing to be in front of him, and as I come up from the roll I draw the gun at my thigh and aim it at him. He's on his feet, right hand hidden beneath the fall of his cape, and there's an expression on his face somewhere between a grimace and a framed baring of teeth.

I should _feel_ something when I point a gun at the head of the closest thing I had to a real father, shouldn't I?

Yeah, I guess I should.

"Red Hood," he all but _growls_ at me, and from here I can see the drip of blood from his arm. I take a second to confirm that my two shots are just flesh wounds, and not anything life-threatening. "I've been tracking you."

"Congratulations, you found me." I've learned that most people take my normal, flat tone as sarcasm, so I don't bother forcing myself to put any fake emotion in my voice. "Call your jet back, get in it, and go. I don't have any fight with you, Batman." I have anger, and rage, and _fury_ over what he let happen, what he did in _response_ , but that's Jason. Red Hood doesn't have anything against Gotham's claimed protector.

"You're stirring up trouble in _my_ city."

"Not for you," I counter immediately. "Give it a few months for me to fully replace Black Mask and all this ends, B." It's probably a mistake calling him by that old nickname, but it slips from my tongue before I can control it. "All you have to do is talk to the people who work for me already, _ask_ them what my rules are. Did you even bother?"

I can see that it's painful for him to be standing, but with a hole in one leg I don't think most people would expect him to be standing at all. Fighting is a different story. "You think I need to talk to the people who work for you to see your body count, Red Hood? You've killed _dozens_ of people so far; you're trying to tell me you're _better_ than Black Mask?"

"Define 'better.' He's living in your city and you barely _touch_ him, Batman, what's so different about me? As soon as I have control, I'll enforce those rules you never bothered to find out. Maybe you should find out what they are, _then_ decide who you'd rather have running the crime in _your_ city."

"There shouldn't be crime at _all_." There it is.

"Which makes you an idealistic moron. The world you want isn't anything like what we have." He starts to shift forwards, and I make a sharp warning noise and flick the safety off of my gun. "No. I've got no interest in killing you, B, but that's _my_ operation down there and I'm not letting you ruin it. Nothing's getting hurt but Black Mask's profits. If you _really_ want to fight me over that you can, but I'm not going to hesitate to put a bullet in your other leg and keep you down until I'm done with my business here. You're better off cutting your losses and taking a breather to patch those up."

He glares at me, but I can see the quiver in his leg and the way he draws his left arm beneath the fold of the cape, hiding the injury.

Come _on_. Bruce is already going to be down and out for awhile while those heal, I don't want to put another bullet in him and make that take even longer. I really don't. I need him on the streets, keeping Batman alive for the civilians and taking out the petty crime that I can't get around to. Might not need it later, but for right now there's too much chaos and too many unaligned factions on the streets of Gotham for me to stop everyone who might kill, or worse.

"Just go home, B. You're not going to beat me with those injuries, and I already got the drop on you this time. Stitch up the holes, and come back and try to kick my ass another day, if you _really_ feel the need to." I force my voice to be quiet, almost soft, but I also lower the gun to point at his left leg. It's an obvious threat, and none of it is faked. I don't want to pull the trigger, there's no _desire_ to, but I know without having to consider that I'm capable of it.

There's the whisper of an engine, and it's familiar enough that I don't have to glance up to know that it's the jet that causes the backdraft of wind that stirs my jacket. The ladder drops down next to Bruce, his right hand curls around one of the rungs, his left leg braces on another.

"This isn't over," he spits at me, as it starts to pull him upwards.

My response comes easily, as I track his figure with my gun. "You've got no idea." He vanishes into the jet, and it turns and whirls away after just a moment. I watch it go, and then glance down at the rooftop. There are splatters of blood, but even if anyone was up here, no one in Gotham would raise an eyebrow at bloodstains. It's not worth the time or the effort to clean it up, the next few rains will do a decent enough job.

Somewhere, I guess I expected to still feel _something_ when I came face to face with Bruce again. Despite all the evidence that everything else is shut down and unreachable, some part of me still thought that maybe, if the stimulus was important enough, maybe I could feel something beyond anger.

Now I know for sure. This really is all I am, and that makes things simple.

I can deal with being condemned for what I'm doing; it's the _right_ thing. Bruce will never understand how Gotham really works, underneath all his pretense of it being 'his' city. He doesn't understand Crime Alley, or what drives people to commit crimes, or what it's like to be one of those people that the law doesn't care about. He thinks he can scare people into being perfect citizens, and ignores that sometimes there's no other choice than stealing.

And what about the Joker? What about people who can't be scared into being good? The insane, or the people who twist that fear in on itself and fight him as real villains? What then? They're just going to keep killing, and every time Bruce pretends to put them away 'for good' is another opportunity for them to break out and continue hurting people. Why can't he see that?

Well, let's see how he tries to deal with me. Let's see how he deals with someone who has _no_ fear, who's not even capable of being scared into obedience.

I suppose we'll see how well his morals hold up under my existence.

* * *

 

"Red Hood!"

The call spins me in place, hands falling to my knife and gun, as the black and blue shadow of Nightwing, Dick, lands easily on the cement not twenty feet away. I calculate the distance, his stance as he rises, the five men working about ten feet behind me. It's only been a few days since I shot Bruce, which is probably why Dick is here considering the anger on his face. He must have been tracking me down ever since he heard.

I draw my weapons into my hands, and call over my shoulder, "Finish your work. I'll deal with him." Yeah, I think this might be a good time for a demonstration. I wasn't planning on showing off anytime soon, but if the word spreads I can more than hold my own against the Bats, that might speed up my takeover.

I go on the offensive before Dick can, taking a shot aimed at his right thigh as I lunge forwards at him. I need to drive him back, drive him out of the warehouse or at least out of sight. Otherwise I have to play to the audience, and I don't want him dead, or too badly crippled. That's not part of my plans, and I can't _afford_ both Nightwing and Batman out of commission at the same time. That leaves Gotham's defense up to just Barbara and Timothy, and there's too much going on right now for just them.

He ducks to the side of my shot, pulling his escrima sticks out with a familiar flourish as he meets my charge. I let him knock the gun out of my hand — better that way; I don't have to pretend to shoot him, and I have others hidden anyway — and swipe at his throat with the knife. True to form he falls backwards in a handspring that gets him out of the way and forces me to stay back or risk getting nailed in the face with his boots as they come up. I move in the second I can, as he's settling back on his feet, and throw my forward leg into a kick at the side of his knee.

His feet aren't quite underneath him enough that he's able to move to dodge it, not yet, but it's a mostly harmless blow that doesn't do more than turn his leg in and force him down to that knee. It's set up more than anything, and I drive my knife down towards his skull. I expect the escrima sticks to come up and cross, catching my wrist and stopping the blow, but I don't expect his thumbs to press down on switches on the side of them, and the _sharp_ electrical shock that slices through me.

I jerk away, my breath catching as my limbs twitch from the sudden shock. _That's_ new.

He gets to his feet, spinning the electrified weapons to either side, as I watch him. "Fun toys," I comment, considering how I'm going to push him back now that those are more than just hard sticks. That makes things more complicated, but it _does_ give me an excuse to shove my knife back into its sheath and leave it there. Metal being conductive and all that.

"That they are. How about you surrender and I'll only use them to make sure you're unconscious when the cops arrest you?" Dick even sounds angry. I guess I must have really pissed him off when I shot Bruce. Twice. Or maybe it was forcing him to retreat that did it?

I'd like to give Dick the same offer that I did Bruce, make him realize I don't have any interest in hurting him so long as he's not in my way, but with the audience at my back I can't do that. I have to go after him with what at least _looks_ like real effort.

Or, I could take those sticks away from him. Won't _this_ be a showy stunt?

I lunge at Dick, ignoring the lack of openings in his stance and driving a kick right for the center of his chest. I watch the escrima stick come down on my ankle, smacking my leg to the ground before the theoretical retreat that I never planned on having, and weather the minor burst of pain from the shock that comes with the impact. I get right in his face as I draw my weight back up, blocking the follow-up strike to my ribs with my arm, as he doubtlessly expects me to. The shock sears into me, and I grit my teeth and take it, uncoiling from defensive to wrap the hand of my supposedly defending arm around the electrical stick.

I can see the surprise on his face, which lasts right up until I snap my other hand out and grab a handful of his hair, curling my gloved fingers across his scalp. I can see and feel him jerk, arching at the electrical shock I've included him in, and his mouth parts in some kind of sound of pain that never makes it all the way out of his throat.

It hurts, of course it does, but the pain is a reminder I can still feel something. I don't have any fear of pain, even if I were _capable_ of fear anymore, and I built myself one hell of a tolerance for it.

His free escrima stick slams into my ribs, and that forces a grunt from my throat but it's not enough to make me let go. The momentary increased shock bows his back like a drawstring. His fingers reflexively clench and then release the stick I'm holding, and without waiting I let go of my grip in his hair and raise my leg to get my foot against his stomach and _shove_. He sprawls back, hitting the ground, and I flip his escrima stick in my hand to grip the hilt.

I'm breathing a little harder, and there are a few leftover twitches of muscle, but I'm just fine. He's a little worse for wear, but he's pulling himself together and getting up, moving backwards. Some of his anger has faded to wariness. Good. That means he'll be easier to make retreat, instead of pressing the offense just because he's angry. I need him _out_ of this warehouse.

I match his backward movement by stalking forwards, pushing him as far as he's willing to retreat. It's not far, but it seems like all the space in the world when it's my older — adopted — brother that I'm forcing back. I'm not sure I've ever seen him back off from a fight before, but then I never really got a chance to be with him night and day like I did Bruce. I trained with Dick sometimes, patrolled with him, but we never quite clicked the way Bruce wanted us to. Besides, Dick had his own city, still does.

He's fast, always has been, but I'm just as fast and I don't know all of his patterns but I know some of them. He's showy, flexible, but I'm stronger and I don't have anything to hold me back. He swings the second escrima stick at the side he already struck — it aches, but nothing feels broken — and I don't even _pretend_ to block. I raise my hand and catch it as it comes in, turning my body in with the strike and pinning the weapon against my side so he can't wrench it back.

"Bad move, Nightwing," I grit out, as I drive my already captured escrima stick in at his waist. It doesn't matter that I only sort of know how to use these, and I'm certainly not in his skill level; the electrical addition means I don't have to know how.

He shouts this time, deflecting the strike with his free hand but not without a shock from the touch. I pull my weight back, dragging him in by his grip on the stick I've got pinned against my side, and then reverse it. He sees the headbutt coming, and chooses to let go of his weapon instead of letting me nail him in the head with the front of my helmet. Probably a better choice, but it still means I've disarmed him. He backs off, glaring and back to looking pretty pissed, as I get my grip to the handle of the second escrima stick.

My shoulders ease out some at the removal of the current, and I let out a slow, easier breath as my jaw loosens. The pain isn't fun — I can't feel _fun_ , so there's that — but I can handle it. I've lived with the constant, hollow, _ache_ of being fundamentally _wrong_ for a long time now, on top of all the pain from Ra's and Talia's training, and I learned how to control it. Pain and I came to an understanding.

I drive him backwards with swipes of the sticks, pushing him towards the side door. Dick doesn't go easily, and I never manage to hit him, but he does go. I've got no illusions; Dick is better than this. I took him by surprise with my pain tolerance, and he wasn't expecting me to be able to disarm him and turn his weapons on him. As soon as he gets a handle on my skills, this will be a much more even fight. If I can't convince him to back off before that happens.

Finally I miscalculate, and a kick breaks the sort-of stalemate and knocks one of the escrima sticks out of my hand, sending it skidding across the floor. He doesn't go after it, just reverses his backtrack of motion and moves for me. His fist drives at my right, unguarded side, and I dodge just enough to the side for it to skid past my jacket before pushing forward again. The inwards strike of my remaining captured weapon gets foiled by a pinpoint hand to the fold of my elbow, which numbs out my hand for a moment and makes me drop the stick.

I am _totally_ open for a moment, and he takes advantage by grabbing hold of my jacket at my right side, and my shoulder on the left, an wrenching me down as he drives forward and _slams_ his knee into my stomach. The impact is _hard_ , with almost nothing held back, and it forces the air out of me in a rush. The pain I'm familiar with, but the nausea and urge to fold over and heave my last meal onto the floor never goes away. I manage to swallow it down and push through it, bracing my legs and shoving my shoulder into the center of his chest to get him to let go and back off.

It sort of works, and I press forward because I have nothing else to do, chase him the half step backwards and drive my heel towards his foot. Reinforced boot or not, that will _hurt_. He nearly dances backwards, and I force myself through the lingering physical urge to be sick and go after him. The door is only a dozen feet away, right at his back, I can _do_ this.

I take two more strikes to my already bruised side — an elbow, and a kick that I'm pretty sure cracks a rib — and am forced to draw my knife to keep him off me and moving backwards, before his back hits the door. It's got a push-bar, and it swings open underneath his weight hitting it and lets him out into the parking lot beyond. Distantly, I know that driving him back at such a precise angle was impressive, and I should be proud. I doubt he's thinking of it like that.

I press him through it, shouldering my way out into the night and holding my ground, letting the door swing shut behind me. When it clicks shut I allow myself a harsh breath of the anger sitting somewhere low in my chest. Something like frustration, because I never wanted to let myself get hurt in this fight.

"Alright," I say, snapping my words to really get his attention, "now that the audience is gone you mind if we talk?"

" _Talk?_ " he asks, incredulously. "You put two bullets in Batman before you even said hello but now you want to _talk?_ "

"I put two bullets _through_ him," I correct, "way less dangerous. Look Nightwing, I've got no issue with you, and I'm not real interested in fighting you. I need you on the streets, containing the fallout of my takeover."

"I'm not going to do your dirty work," he snarls, tall and righteous and everything I'm _not_ anymore. Maybe never was.

" _My_ people won't do anything stupid," I argue, "but the power shift is causing a lot of unrest in the factions that aren't aligned. It will all settle just fine as soon as I'm done, but until then I need a Bat on the streets to handle it. I can get around to some of it, but not everything." I don't relax my stance, and I keep the knife defensively in front of me, but he doesn't seem like he's about to leap at me at any moment. It's a step up at least.

"Are you _insane?_ I just told you, I'm not doing your dirty work!"

"I'm not _asking_ you to!" I yell, anger slipping from my control for a second. I grit my teeth together behind the helmet, breathe evenly for a moment to control it. "You want me to make it simple for you, Nightwing? _Here_. I want you on the streets, doing your _job_. Patrol, stop gang activity, save citizens in distress, track down your rogues, _whatever_. I'm not interested in letting innocent people get hurt and I am _trying_ to minimize the collateral damage, but Gotham's a damn big place and I'm just one person. I am _trying_ to end this as quickly as I can so I can get around to calming things down, but it is _not easy_."

I take a deep breath, ignoring the ache of my side and stomach, and snarl at him, "I _want_ you helping me make sure no one gets hurt, Nightwing, but don't for one _second_ think that means I won't take you out of play if you keep coming after me."

He doesn't look convinced, in fact he looks closer to jumping at me than he did before, so I use my information as a weapon. "Back down, _Dick_."

He jerks, and I can't see it behind the mask but I know his eyes must be wide, like the way his mouth drops open for a second. I can still recognize shock. "How did you—" He recovers, lunges at me, and he's fast and efficient. It doesn't take much for him to twist the knife out of my hand and slam me up against the wall, not when I'm hurt and he's so _focused_. Not a perfect pin, I could— "Who _are_ you?" he demands, hands gripping my jacket at the shoulders.

"A mistake," I spit back at him. I didn't want to play my hand this soon, but I need them off my back so I can _do_ this. If that takes shocking and scaring Dick away from me by telling him I know all his secrets, I'll do it. "I know who everyone in your _family_ is, _Nightwing_. Back off, or I'll shout it to the world and see how fast you all come crashing down without your money and your _manor_. You wouldn't want that on _your_ head, would you, _Dick?_ "

He lets me go; jerks backwards a few steps like he needs the space between us. "You _can't_."

"I _can_." I wouldn't — there's some part of me, even if it's just the anger, that doesn't want them dead or in pain by any hand but maybe my own — but it's an effective scare tactic. Especially for Dick, who always felt the need to protect the family. _Especially_ me, as Robin. A distant part of me knows it's cruel, but I continue by hissing, "After what happened to your last brother, how long do you think this new one will last if I say even a _word?_ "

Dick jerks, pales as the blood rushes from his face, and takes another step back. " _No_ , don't you _dare_ bring either of them into this."

"Then go save your city, and stay off my _back_."

It's a pale victory when Dick, shaky and obviously _scared_ , turns and runs. It's not all fear, there's anger in his expression too, but apparently I sold it well enough to make him believe I really will do what I've threatened.

I collect my knife from the ground, and after a minute of watching to make sure he's not coming back I head back inside the warehouse. I collect Dick's escrima sticks from the ground, switching off the electrical current, and then, finally, my gun where it's still lying on the ground, barely ten feet from the workers I've got loading a shipment into a truck.

"Nightwing's gone for now," I announce, when I get curious and wary looks but no actual questions. "Finish the work before he decides to call in backup and take a second run at us." I tighten my grip around the escrima sticks as my workers snap to obey, and close my eyes for a second to push away anger, pain, and _exhaustion_.

Sleep would be a useful thing right now, after the shocks and the minor injuries, but it's not something I'm going to get for at least another hour. I have work to do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome back! Bits from Bruce and Dick's PoVs this time. Hope you enjoy!

I punch in the autopilot the second I'm in the jet, anger and pain spiking in my chest and driving my eyes shut for a moment as the jet takes off. I tug the harness on, just in case, and then turn my attention down towards my lower left arm. Blood is dripping down it, hot and wet as it soaks into my suit and gauntlet. I allow myself a tiny grimace as I flex the hand, making sure everything still works.

It's painful, and it's definitely bloody, but everything still bends and moves correctly. Nothing's damaged beyond the time it'll take for the hole to heal closed. I could even still patrol with this, if necessary. It's not my dominant hand, and it would hurt but I could ignore the pain. Either that was a lucky accident, or the Red Hood is more dangerous than I gave him credit for. Unfortunately, I think that's more likely than that he just _happened_ to miss the shot he was aiming for, from barely a building away, while I was a stationary target.

The matching hole in my right calf is enough proof of his skills. It was fast, I _was_ in motion for it, but I can tell by the feeling that it's not serious either. More than just a graze, there's certainly at least a sizeable chunk taken out of my leg, if not an actual hole in it, but I could and can tell by the feeling of it that it's the same as the wound through my arm. Painful, bloody, but still not serious.

I reach up with my right hand, activating the coms built into the suit and closing my eyes for just a moment before I command, "Nightwing, pull back to base."

After a pause where I check the autopilot settings and make sure the jet is taking me back to the Cave, Nightwing's voice comes to life in my ear. _"You sure, B?"_ A grunt of exertion, and then he says, almost cheerily, _"I'm kind of in the middle of a lead on our new player."_

_No_. If Nightwing tracks down Red Hood, if he catches my partner off _guard_ the same way he did me… Nightwing doesn't need me to protect him, not usually, but Red Hood is more dangerous than either of us gave him credit for, and more _complicated_.

" _Now_ ," I growl, and shut off the communication. Next I reach forward, clicking on the jet's separate communications. "Alfred, I'm heading back."

The video lights up, and Alfred already has one unimpressed eyebrow raised, the kitchen showing in the background. _"And it's barely even two in the morning, Master Bruce. How concerned should I be and how many medical supplies should I have out?"_ Alfred's eternally dry sarcasm is a good, stable point right now, as my mind starts to dissect Red Hood's exact choice of wording.

"Two gunshot wounds, bloody but not serious. Nightwing's headed back as well, don't know his condition, shouldn't be much if anything." Alfred knows something isn't right, I can see it in the slight narrowing of his eyes, but he doesn't comment on my obvious avoidance of exactly why both of us are headed back so — relatively — early.

_"Understood; I'll retrieve the supplies and be in the Cave when you arrive, sir.”_

Alfred reaches forward and shuts off the video link, and I stay still for a moment, staring at it as I try and consider what to do next. I can explain everything to Dick when we're back at the Manor, and Barbara can listen in or get told later. _Robin_ ; Tim. I can't have him in Gotham until we know more about what the Red Hood wants, or what he's trying to do. He doesn't seem immediately hostile, in certain ways.

He _did_ shoot me without warning, or threat, but he also had a gun at my head and didn't pull the trigger. He probably could have ended me, or at least injured me _much_ worse than he did, and I probably wouldn't have been able to stop him. What benefit could there be for him in _not_ killing me when he had the chance?

Red Hood is clearly ruthless, absolutely dangerous and well-armed, and he's got a mind behind all of it. What is his _goal_ here in Gotham, and why would that goal not include taking me out of play? Any direct conflict with me or not, he's a _criminal_. He must know that I'll bring him in if he gives me even the slightest chance to do it, so if he's as ruthless as all the reports from Hong Kong say he is why wouldn't he take the chance to kill me? Besides, if he'd killed me, there would have been a _large_ boost to his reputation. No, not just large, but game-changing.

The rest of the family would have gone after him, but I think he could probably handle it.

Maybe I'm extrapolating too much based on what little I saw. I _know_ that he's a remarkably good marksman to be able to injure me the way he did, I know that the form he used jumping from his building to mine — as well as the roll, and coming up with his other gun already out — was absolutely perfect, and I know that he was perfectly willing to take me down with a gunshot to the other leg if I tried to fight him. To the _leg_ , which is a conscious decision to hurt and cripple _temporarily_ , not kill or cause permanent damage. That doesn't make sense, but it is still a fact.

The rest I can wait to discuss with Nightwing, see if he has any other ideas once he's seen the footage my suit will have captured. Also, after I've had time to dissect exactly what Red Hood said, how he said it, and any kind of body language I might have missed while I was watching him. That helmet won't let me get any kind of facial cues off him, and the modulator in it disrupts some of the tone, but what's left should be enough to get at least some clue of his intentions. Or, maybe there's some connection between what he said that I missed hearing the first time. I'll need to review the footage, the audio, and see what I can figure out. Preferably with Nightwing at my back, so he can pick out anything that I might skip over.

I may have trained him, but he reads people differently than I do and with a different priority. I look for motivation, for lies, but Dick looks first for emotion. We'll both see the full picture after a few viewings, but it reduces the time if we're both watching.

For now, I need to finish dealing with my partners, making sure the people who need to know immediately are informed. Or misdirected.

I turn the communications back on and call Robin, who answers after two rings that feel a little too long to my currently enhanced paranoia. "Robin," I greet, with just a _little_ bit of stiffness. Tim is, he's… He's not what I'm used to, and even though we work together well, he's so _different_ than either Dick or — the name hurts less now — Jason that I still find myself consistently surprised in small ways by what he chooses to do.

I still find myself reaching to hold him back like I would have had to with either Dick or Jason, and finding him still and waiting right beside me, considering every angle just like _I_ always have before he picks one. He's not _better_ than them, and I would never think that way, but he's very different and I also wouldn't want him to be anything but what he is. It just means I'm off balance dealing with him more than I like, and that's new to me.

"Robin here," he answers, voice sharp and no-nonsense but very quickly becoming a shouted, "Wait, no, don't!" A large crash barely reaches the microphone, and then there's a bitten off sigh. "There are some issues with the reconstruction of the tower after the last attack. What is it, Batman?" His tone sounds a lot like mine when I'm trying to herd the Justice League into doing what I want them to, _without_ making a mess or causing massive property damage. Frustrated and snapping, but restrained because yelling at your team will only make them more belligerent.

That's especially true for Green Lantern.

"There's a situation in Gotham," I start, and I can almost _feel_ the question through the coms, even though there's no video to go along with it. "Stay with the rest of the Titans until Nightwing or I contact you, understood?"

There's a moment of silence that sounds like Tim is trying to consider all the things that could be happening that would make me ban him from Gotham. Then, finally, he answers with a simple, "Understood. Anything else?"

"No, Robin. Batman out."

I click the communications off, and then ease back into the seat of the jet. It's not precisely comfortable, it wasn't supposed to be, but it's enough for me to relax a touch. I keep half my attention on the controls and the view through the windows, just in case, and devote the rest to meditative counts. I push away the pain, slow my heart rate to slow blood flow, and breathe evenly, deeply, and slowly. The pain really isn't that bad to begin with, but until I can transfer the footage over and rerun it, theorizing is as far as I'll be able to get. I can do that later, and it's better to review the facts before I start planning for theories that are more than likely not even true. After all, only one theory can be right, and that's chancing that the one I guessed is actually correct, and I didn't miss the real plan entirely.

Red Hood is more complex than my standard villains, at least on first glance, and his motivations aren't as clear as most of them.

Why did he ask if I'd bothered to question anyone who works for him and find out his 'rules'? Why did he make it sound like he thinks he's the far better choice — and that he believes that _I'll_ think he's the better choice — to run Black Mask's criminal organization? Why is that?

There's so much about his behavior that doesn't make sense for now. Not that it never will; I only have to learn more about him, and figure out exactly what his motivations are. Money, power, possession, all of the above, or none? Most people can be predicted once you know why they're behaving the way they are, and I doubt Red Hood is an exception to that. I might not understand him yet, but I will. I'll dissect every _moment_ of my footage, run through every fact and report that's come to light, and find out exactly what drives him. Then I'll track him back down and bring him in to the authorities. Either Arkham, if his motivations are a little more questionably sane, or Iron Heights, if he's sane but simply choosing to be evil.

There's no doubt in my mind that a regular prison wouldn't be able to hold him. Not for long, anyway, or not unless he wanted to stay there for some reason. Putting a human in among the super-powered is rarely pleasant for the human, but if they're dangerous enough to have to be contained there, so be it. I am, for the moment, assuming that Red Hood is entirely human. The way he moved and looked said 'human' to me, not super-powered. Skilled, not gifted with advantages from the start.

I stay still, considering the points I remember of his words, until the jet pulls into the Cave's entry passage, slowing down as it nears the end of the tunnel. I take the controls, briefly, to deactivate the autopilot and land it by myself, settling it onto the appropriate pad before shutting it down. I release the harness, push open the release for the hatch, and stand to slide up and out of the jet. I leave the cockpit open; Alfred will want to take disinfectant and rags to the inside of the entire thing since I've bled on it.

Landing on the ground is a little painful, but I swallow the wince and start across the platforms to where I can see Alfred waiting, beside one of the gurneys and a tray of medical supplies. I'm only limping a little bit, and as I walk towards him I raise my right hand and pull back the cowl. The fresh air feels good, but I don't allow myself more than a moment to appreciate it. Alfred doesn't help me up onto the gurney, but I don't need the help anyway. The wounds aren't that serious.

"I assume," Alfred says dryly, as he begins to help me strip out of the suit, "that we will be waiting for Master Richard to arrive before relaying the story of what happened?" I don't answer him, and I can pretend that the slightly harsher tug of the suit down and off my wounded arm is just coincidence but that would be denial. I try not to let myself stay in denial, at least about the important things. "Of course." Alfred sets aside the pieces of the suit as they come off, for the important parts to be cleaned off and the damaged ones to be replaced.

The disinfectant burns, but I swallow that away with everything else and let Alfred do his work. The needle barely feels like anything, and Alfred is just barely reaching for the pads and rolls of bandages when the sound of Dick's bike echoes down the tunnel and into the cave. It gets louder as he pulls in — it's actually nearly silent unless the setting is changed specifically for the engine to growl, but the Cave's acoustics emphasize noise — and then pulls it to a stop off to the side, in the line of other vehicles. Mostly a few versions of the car, just in case certain specific elements are needed for a mission.

Dick's, of course, still dressed entirely in the Nightwing costume, but he heads for both of us without pause as soon as he's swung off the bike. He already looks irritated, and it gets worse as he approaches and his head tilts down to focus on the wound on my arm Alfred is currently wrapping, and then to the still faintly bleeding hole in my right calf. He gets a little stiffer, and then stops at the foot of the table and crosses his arms, glancing up at Alfred very briefly.

"Are those _bullet_ holes?" Dick demands, not a hint of his normally easygoing attitude around, but I didn't expect him to react any differently.

Dick is easygoing, and generally trusting of people, until someone near him gets hurt, or until he steps into a leadership role. There is absolutely _nothing_ more important to Dick than the people that he cares about, and very little else capable of making him drop any and all hints of a deflecting smile or a joke. Dick would tear apart the world to keep the people he loves safe, up to a certain point, and then he _would_ sacrifice the people he loves for the safety of the world. It would _kill_ him, and he would never even consider it if it weren't the absolute last option, but he would do it.

Some part of me hates that I've taught him how to sacrifice like that.

"Red Hood," I answer shortly, and Dick draws in a sharp breath through his teeth. "The footage is still in the suit, would you—?"

Dick is already moving, not needing to be told what to do. He retrieves the chip in my belt that stores all information the suit's sensors or video feed picks up, and crosses the open area of the cave to the computer to plug it in. It immediately starts to download, and he leaves it there and comes back to me and Alfred, who's just tying off the bandage over my arm. Dick shifts out of the way to let Alfred around the table and at my leg, and then comes to stand at my shoulder.

"Neither of you look worried. Are they just grazes, did you get lucky?"

"No," I preempt, before he can come to any more conclusions on his own. "It's complicated—”

"Explain it," Dick demands. "You got _shot_ , Bruce, twice, and by the guy we were out looking for anyway. But you didn't _call_ for me, and if you'd found Red Hood on your own you _damn_ well should have called me to come help take him down because that's what we _agreed_ on. Explain it."

I tilt my head down for a second in acceptance, considering my words before I speak. "I tracked down one of his operations, one that was happening tonight. I was a building over, taking a look to make sure my intel was right, and he ambushed me. Took both shots in the span of about three seconds, before I could find him or get out of the way. Neither is serious, I'm almost certain it was intentional. If I'd known he was there, and had the time to call, I would have."

Dick's hands tighten over his own arms, and he looks angry, but I don't think it's at me. "He could have killed you," he says sharply, almost sounding just a touch frightened.

"Yes," I agree, "he chose not to. You'll see it in the video, but he said he didn't have any fight with me; all he wanted was for me not to interfere with his operation." Dick tenses a little bit further, and I carefully keep myself from doing the same. Not with Alfred stitching closed the hole in my leg. "A lot of what he said doesn't make sense with what we've guessed about why he's pressing Black Mask so hard. I'd like you to help me reason out what he said, see if we can get a grasp on his motivations or even just his plan."

Dick considers, and then nods once, carefully. "Give me the stats," he says, leaning on the gurney as we both wait for Alfred to finish his work.

"Six feet, an extra inch or so with the boots and the helmet. Roughly two-hundred and thirty pounds judging by the muscle I _could_ see, which wasn't much. Fairly pale. His clothing and weapons are good quality, but not new, and they've seen a lot of work, but no stains, tears, or fraying. Either he's very careful, or he's skilled enough to avoid it. His posture is good, so is the form he used free-jumping from the building he was on over to mine. You'll see that too. Voice modulator on the helmet, might be possible to change it back to the real sound with some work, but I doubt it. Sounded too professional for that."

I pause, waiting another moment to try and think of anything else that immediately jumped to mind during my confrontation with Red Hood. Apart from the fact that he's an excellent marksman, which Dick clearly already knows.

"He spoke like he knew me," I say suddenly, as that fact snaps into focus.

Red Hood spoke like he knew who I was, knew how I thought, knew _everything_ there was to know about how I operate. He talked like he knew Gotham, too. Better than just a visitor, or someone who chose to live here. He spoke like—

"I think he's a Gotham native," I tell Dick, narrowing my eyes just a touch and then shaking my head to get rid of the nagging thought. "He called me ' _B_.' " Which shouldn't bother me nearly as much as it's starting to, since it's a perfectly valid shortening of 'Batman,' but there was something about how he said it. Something… Something _familiar_ in the same way that sometimes I can catch hints in Joker's voice of how I remember that faceless, nameless gang member who fell in that vat of chemicals speaking. Rarely, but sometimes.

But Red Hood said 'B' like it meant something, the way Dick and Barbara call me 'B.' Like he knew it means something more than just a fast way to get my attention without having to say the entirety of 'Batman.' Was he just mocking my disadvantage? Calling me 'B' to try and sound familiar, to press the fact that he had me down and a pull of his finger away from, at _least_ , another gunshot wound? It's not a bad psychological play, if that was the intention, but _was_ it?

I push myself up to sitting, even though Alfred gives me a displeased look, and Dick wordlessly turns and grabs the short stack of clothes off the table behind him, where Alfred has all the supplies laid out. I don't even try to move and get pants on over the black briefs that are currently all I'm wearing, not with Alfred just finishing the stitches on the opposite side of my leg, but I do shrug into the black tank-top while he's working. Dick moves to collect a pair of crutches, which I glance at with resignation because Alfred will _not_ let me walk around normally with a hole in my leg, no matter how superficial it is. Dick, by extension, won't either, and they're going to watch me like _hawks_.

"I told Tim to stay with the Titans until we contact him again," I announce, mostly to Dick but also to Alfred. "Until we know Red Hood's motivation, and what morals or rules he might have, it's dangerous to have him here in Gotham with us. We can call him back once we've dealt with Red Hood, or we're sure that he won't be a target used to hold us back."

"You think Red Hood's that ruthless?" Dick asks, and then glances along my leg, my arm, and winces. "Yeah, probably. You're right, Tim's better off with the Titans until we've dealt with this. I'll give him a call once we're done tonight, back up your order. You didn't tell him anything, right?" Dick doesn't wait for my answer, shaking his head a little bit. "No, of course you didn't. I'll give him the basics."

He glances over at Alfred, reaches over to nudge the bandages and the two thick pads closer to where my oldest friend is working, and then steps back and away. "Guess my intel on Hood's not much good for tonight; didn't get that far anyway. I'm going to rinse off, Bruce, meet you at the computer. Alfred—”

"Don't worry, Master Richard," Alfred comments, not looking up from the work, "I won't allow him to stand without the crutches."

They're not _necessary_ ; I can move faster _without_ them, but I know better than to say anything.

Dick smiles, teeth showing for just a second, and then he heads for the showers as he tosses over his shoulder, “Great, thanks Alfred.”

The two of them are rather excessively mothering. At times. I’ll just have to survive it until they give up.

* * *

“Bruce.”

My voice comes out weaker than I remember it being, shallow. I barely remember getting back to the Cave, or parking my bike, or even getting out of the district by the docks and back to my bike to begin with. I just remember the fight, the pain, getting driven back out of the warehouse on my heels. Bruce wasn’t kidding, Red Hood is _good_. He's strong, fast, skilled, and the way he could take _pain_ was…

"Dick?" Bruce is standing out of his chair, leaning on the side of it but clearly wanting to cross the room to me.

I do the work for him, getting across the empty space as though in a dream, and then wrapping my arms around his chest and clinging, burying my head into his shoulder. He's not in the Batman suit, just a pair of black sweatpants and a black t-shirt, but he's warm and solid and I _really_ need something to ground me right now. It's like I'm still floating, and the cold wash of _fear_ that swept down my spine at Red Hood's words — _"Back down, **Dick**."_ — never went away.

Bruce's arms wrap around my shoulders, and I can feel the beat of his heart through my suit, I focus on it. "You're shaking," he says quietly, worried and maybe even a little bit afraid.

I force a deep breath into my lungs, clutching a little tighter for a second. "I tracked down Red Hood," I manage, into his shoulder. Bruce stiffens, and then he's pulling me away from him and tilting his head to study me, take a sweeping look up and down my frame.

"Are you hurt?" he demands, jaw tight and his hands solid around my upper arms.

I shake my head. "A couple of bruises, nothing important. I don't—" I can _feel_ the shudder that claws down my spine. "I don't think he was even interested in fighting me, let alone actually hurting me. _Bruce_ , he knows who we are." I can see the slight widening of Bruce's eyes, and feel the clench of his hands around my arms. "He knew my _name_ , he mentioned _Jason_."

"Tell me what happened," Bruce demands, turning to pull me to sit down on the console of the computer. I let him.

"It's in the recording," I say, almost numbly. "Thought it would be a good idea to record it, after what happened with you."

"We'll watch it," Bruce promises, sitting down next to me and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. That's his injured arm, and a part of me wants to remind him of that, but not enough of me. "Tell me first."

I raise my left hand — Bruce is right, I _am_ shaking — and scrub it over my face, raking it back through my hair. "I went through a dozen gang members before one knew what operations he was running tonight, and two of those just had his lackeys. I was careful, Bruce, I scouted the whole thing before I went into the building. It was just some kind of shipment, a warehouse down at the docks. There were a few minions there, and he was overseeing things, _totally_ at ease." I swallow, tilting my head back to find comfort in the familiar dark corners of the Cave's roof.

"I confronted him, and he told them to keep working, that he'd deal with me. He's _fast_ , Bruce, and he's got so much more training than just the guns. He took a shot at me, but he _let_ me knock the gun out of his hand, came at me with that knife on his thigh instead." I can feel Bruce stiffen again, next to me, and I know he's looking over me to make sure there aren't any slashes in my uniform, or any blood. "He doesn't know everything about us, or maybe his information is old, but he didn't know my escrima sticks were electrified."

Another glance, and then Bruce asks, "Where are they?"

I shake my head, lowering it to stare down at the floor. "He took them. I don't just mean disarmed, Bruce, he _literally_ wrapped his hands around them, turned the current back on me, and _waited_ until I let go. I had to knock them back out of _his_ hands; would have been worse if he really knew how to use them."

Bruce makes a noise that's equal parts consideration and some kind of worry. "It's possible he doesn't feel pain."

"No, I could _see_ the reaction in him. Tensed muscles, harder breathing, recoiling; he _felt_ it, it just didn't slow him down. The kind of pain he can take… I hit him in the side a couple of times, I heard one of his ribs crack, and he didn't even seem to _care_. His form's _good_ too, just as good as you or me, Bruce. He wasn't trying to hurt me and he _still_ drove me back out of his warehouse. Not _easily_ , but he was just like some kind of a wall. Every time I tried to get around him, or change the angle of the fight, he herded me back into exactly where he wanted me to go. It felt like fighting Deathstroke, Bruce, or one of Ra's' lieutenants."

"Metahuman?" Bruce asks, simply, and I snort.

"Yeah, that would make things easier, wouldn't it? No, just human as far as I could tell. Everything about him was normal except maybe the knife, and that's just because it's a foreign design. He was in Hong Kong, he could have picked it up there, and everything else is like we decided from _your_ footage. Good quality gear, but none of it is new and all of it's been pretty heavily used but well maintained."

Bruce's arm tightens around my shoulders, lips press against my forehead — not what Bruce would usually do, he's _worried_ , but I'm not going to bring it up — and he shifts his weight a little further into me. "You said he knew your name. You talked?"

"Yeah," I confirm, straightening up a little bit. "He pushed me out of the warehouse, the door closed, and he said he wanted to talk. He said the _audience_ was gone, and he just wanted to speak to me. He tried to argue me down, talking about how he needed a Bat on the streets, and he was trying to minimize the collateral damage. He said he wasn't interested in innocents getting hurt, and that he was doing what he could but he couldn't handle all of Gotham on his own. It was like he was saying _he's_ patrolling too, Bruce, like he thinks he's actually helping. He told me to back down. He said: 'Back down, _Dick_.' Like it could have just been an insult."

"It wasn't?"

Another shake of my head, and I let my hands clench into tight fists. "He said he knew who we all were, threatened to tell the world if I didn't get off his back. _God_ , Bruce he asked me how long I thought my new brother would last, after what happened to the last one. He knows my name, and he knows what happened to _Jason_ , and about _Tim_."

"We'll find him," Bruce promises, with an angry growl to his voice. "Come on, let's watch the video footage, see if we can pick anything up, or pinpoint who taught him. Maybe his style is unique and we can match it against someone else." His arm tightens once more, and then he lets go. "Give me the footage, Dick, and then go take a shower and get changed. There will be _something_ , you know that."

I force another deep breath, and slide off the console to stand again. "I know. Everyone has a tell; no one's perfect." I fish the recording chip out of my suit, press it into his waiting palm, and straighten up. "Don't start that without me," I try and press, and his mouth twitches at one corner.

"You know I wouldn't." Except he has, and will again unless I tell him not to. He values my opinion, but he'll always start looking for clues before I get there, to make the most of time.

"Liar. Not until I'm back, Bruce." With the last warning, I turn my back and head for the showers. I do feel a _little_ better, but having Bruce backing me always makes me feel better, even in situations like this. Together, we can fix or solve anything, doesn't matter what it is.

We're family, and _no one_ gets to threaten us with that fact. I don't care how dangerous they think they are, or how well they think they have us trapped. We'll always find a way to win, that's just what we do. It's what we've always done. We'll look over the footage, send it to Barbara, and hunt the son of a bitch down.

Red Hood isn't going to get away with this. We'll make _sure_ of it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So, fair warning, this probably does not go the way you expected it to. Any of you. XD I certainly didn't expect it when I wrote it, but it just kind of happened. Hope you enjoy!

After Dick's ambush I move my timetable up. The only things I was actually waiting for were a few operations to finish up and wrest a bit more control from Black Mask’s hands. I wanted him to get as frustrated with me as I could make him, so that after his raging and shouting at his employees I’d be a breath of fresh air, but I don't have to. His attention is already on me, and even if I don’t have as much control as I’d like it might work better like this. A competitor meeting Black Mask head on is one thing, but someone still not quite as big a name as him taking him out? Might be better, though it’ll be more work for me in the long run. I can handle that.

More importantly, with Bruce still down from the wounds I gave him and Dick too freaked out to come after me for at least another few days — he’ll stabilize, and then he’ll track me down pretty much single-mindedly — this is the best time for me to do anything. Interference is unlikely, with the two big names out of play. There’s the new Robin, Barbara, and the plethora of other allies that Bruce has in the Justice League, but they won’t get sent after me. Not after Dick tells Bruce that I know who they are. They won’t risk anyone taking me in except for them, and Bruce is too proud to ask for help dealing with me anyway.

No one is welcome in Gotham except for Bats, barring some kind of apocalypse.

Setting up how I’m going to kill Black Mask is easy. I’ve killed targets with much better security than him, mostly for practice while I was in Hong Kong, but this one has its own unique challenges. It has to be fast, to prove that I’m much more dangerous than he was and that I’m not to be challenged, but also more personal than a bullet in the head from a rooftop away. Anyone can take a shot, and it’s a very distant way to kill. I want it bloody, in their faces, and obvious that I’m the one behind it. A shame, considering how easy it would be to take the clear shot through that giant glass window he's got behind his desk. Bulletproof, sure, but that's not infallible.

I spend two days — on and off, between hurrying up those last few operations I’ve got running — watching Black Mask through the massive glass window. He’s clearly angry, and from the bugs I’ve got set up in his office I know it’s all because of me and how efficiently I’m taking over the smaller parts of his business. Then again, with two Bats out of commission, and no one else moving in on him — as far as I’m aware — it really has to be me. His detail of security guards gets the worst of his temper, though there are definitely a couple of time that I think he might be about to hit his assistant, the black-haired, Asian, straight-laced woman in her spotless matched skirt and suit jacket. Instead, each time, he turns on his guards and hits them instead.

That must be a terrible job to have. Stand around with a gun and occasionally play punching bag to the insane guy in a black skull mask. They must be getting quite the paycheck to put up with that.

No one notices me attaching a line to the strip of material that’s above his window, but before the next floor, and is really the only place I can actually get a hook into, and I pick a time when Black Mask heads home — or at least somewhere else — to swing down from the roof of my chosen surveillance spot. The glass is reinforced, and pretty decently, but some strategically placed explosives will take care of that. Black Mask isn’t fantastically observant when he thinks he’s somewhere safe — I've been in and out of his office a few times, to set up those bugs so I could hijack his shipments and know what he was doing — and I know that it's unlikely he'll see any of them until I'm ready to make my entrance. I don't need to wait for anything except whenever he gets back in; his guards and his assistant will make for more than enough of an audience.

I’ve already spoken with some of his personal guards during the time I’ve been here. I didn’t try and specifically turn any of them, but I told them the option was there when the time came. If I’m lucky, some of them might even turn on their co-workers and keep all the guards in a stalemate, while I take care of Black Mask. At least, my offers might make them wait and see how the confrontation plays out.

I’ve got absolutely no doubt that I can handle Black Mask. He’s strong, and he’s viciously intelligent when he needs to be, but I was trained by some of the best assassins in the world. He won’t stand a chance.

Of course, because I should have known by now that the universe hates me, that's the morning I wake up with a fever and a fatigue clinging all the way down to my bones that can only mean one thing.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," I snarl at my ceiling. I've been around more people than usual in the last couple of days, sure, but never without my helmet in the way. My helmet with built in _filter_. How did this even happen?

It's too late to postpone anything, so I drag myself out of the bed in my safe house and pull myself through a shower and the rest of basic hygiene. Breakfast is trickier — my stomach doesn't appreciate even the relatively bland bowl of cereal — but I hold it down and make myself finish it. The helmet feels stifling, and my leather jacket is too hot, but I suck it up and ignore the discomfort. I can deal with this later, when I don't have the murder of a crime lord planned and everything set up to be ready in roughly — I glance at the clock on the wall of the apartment — two hours.

Getting across the city is harder than it ever should be, and I spend a few irritating minutes slumped underneath the ledge of the building opposite Black Mask's, trying to catch my breath and ignore the way my shoulders are twitching in small shudders. It's just a bug, it's nothing more than a _virus_ , and I have worked through far worse and far more painful. I can handle some muscle weakness and a bit of nausea; Black Mask isn't a good enough fighter for me to need to call the whole thing off. He’s not going to be enough of a challenge that me not being at my best is going to change anything.

Besides, if I call it off now than he knows what I'm trying to do. Those explosives on his window won't be missed forever, and he'll move locations or beef up security if he knows I'm changing tactics and gunning straight for him. It's too late to stop without the risk of being found out, and I'm not making this harder on myself down the road. I'll just work through it, kill him now, get the basics started for taking over, and go back home to pass out and sleep this off.

I stay still and let myself rest, watching Black Mask's office through a pair of binoculars as I carefully count my breathing patterns and push away everything I don’t want to deal with right now. Somewhere around ten the doors push open, and he comes striding in with that assistant of his at his heels, her hands full and holding coffee in one and a clipboard in the other. He's gesticulating wildly, and it's hard to get a read on his face but I'm pretty sure he's somewhere between furious and just normally pissed off. Something to do with me, hopefully. Probably.

His guards file in afterwards, silently taking up positions on either side of the room — eight in total, and I recognize at least two from having talked with them before, not a problem — as Black Mask loops around the back of his desk. The assistant sets the coffee down in front of him, and I lower the binoculars and get ready to make my move. I check my weapons, make absolutely sure that everything I need is ready and primed, and then snag the detonator for the explosives from my pocket.

I hook myself onto the line, jump off the ledge to trust my weight to it, and hit the button.

The explosion is fairly impressive, loud, and it does what I need it to. Most importantly, shatter the glass and send it raining down into the room. I don't quite trust my arms at the moment, so I'm holding the hook with both hands as I fly down towards the room, and I let go at just the right moment to angle myself correctly as Black Mask recovers from his automatic ducking flinch and turns around. He has time to look up with wide eyes as I fall through the rain of glass, and then both of my boots drive into the middle of his chest with all of my momentum. Enough to kill or at least cripple a normal person, but Black Mask is a little more sturdy than most. He slams back against his desk, and as my legs bend to absorb the impact through my knees I push back off, flipping back through the air and landing solidly halfway between him and the edge of the room now open to the very long fall outside.

The assistant backs off — _smart_ — as I draw my knife to my hand and straighten up from the crouch, advancing on Black Mask. The guards react, draw their guns, but in the moment of their hesitation I angle myself to be more behind Black Mask’s half-sprawled form and they all stall. Yeah, I didn't think any of them were good enough shots to try and take me out from here, not with the chance they might hit him.

"Get up," I order, flipping my knife and using a bit of the snarling growl that I learned from Bruce. Ra's enhanced it, but the Batman growl can be used to scare pretty much anybody.

Black Mask recovers faster than I gave him credit for, all but jerking to his feet as he pulls a gun from within his coat. I duck down to avoid the first shot, lunging forward to swing my knife in at his wrist. He pulls back and to the side, dodging with a grace I didn't think he had, but not fast enough that my knife doesn't hit the side of the gun and knock it from his hands.

I don't give him the time to reach for another weapon, following the slice with a kick to his chest that actually almost hits. He's retreating, back towards the side of the room and away from the dangerous drop, and he takes the opportunity to shout, " _Shoot_ him!" at the bodyguards. His voice sounds strained, and no matter how he might be moving it's obvious that both of my feet to his chest has pretty seriously knocked the breath out of him. If it didn’t break anything, which is pretty likely.

There is a bit of distance between the two of us, they probably could at least try, but I counter by snapping, "I _wouldn't_." Out of the corner of my eye, as I move after Black Mask and drive him back, I can see two of the guards turn and point their guns at the others. I can't feel the satisfaction, but the anger on Black Mask's face is… I don't know, it interests me somehow.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" the crime lord snarls, mostly at me, as he ducks to the side of a kick aimed at his throat.

"Taking you out of the game," I answer, and he apparently doesn't see the wall at his back but I do. He hits it, looks surprised, and doesn't have the space to dodge out of the way of my knife.

He doesn't do more than grunt as it carves down across his shoulder, dragging through skin and muscle, and lashes out with his other arm. I give him just enough space for the blow not to hit me, and then move back in. His hands catch my arm as it comes down to drive the knife into his chest, and whatever else he might be Black Mask is _strong_. His teeth bare in a growl, and I can feel the weakness in my muscles from whatever damned virus has caught me allowing him to hold my arm up and off of him. His right knee comes up at my side, and I push it aside with my free hand so it only brushes against the outside of my jacket. My arm shakes a little bit from the effort, and his growl becomes something more like a sneer as he starts pushing my arm up and away from him. Thinking quickly, _knowing_ I can't force the blade in like this, I drop the knife.

His eyes track it as I catch it with my other hand, and he has time for a sharp inhalation before I bury it in his stomach. Not the clean kill I was looking for, but it will do. I twist my knife and then drag it back out, yanking my arm away from his grasp and stepping back.

He's leaning heavily against the wall, and both his hands come down to cover the hole in the right of his stomach. "Son of a _bitch_ ," he gasps out, eyes wide.

I've got no pity, no mercy, but there's a part of me that knows it's cruel to let someone bleed out from a stomach wound. I'm not looking to be known as cruel; just efficient. I want Black Mask out of play, I want control of all of his business and his subordinates, but I don't want him to suffer. I can kill cleanly, or long and slowly — Ra's and Talia taught me hundreds of different ways — and this might not have gone quite the way I wanted it to but it will have to do.

I step forward, and I can see the realization in his eyes but he doesn't move fast enough to stop me driving the knife up through the bottom of his jaw. His weight collapses, and I yank the blade out and turn around without a second glance. Again there's that thought that I should feel something, anything, and the rest of my mind replying that _yes_ , I should, but I _can't_. The lack of guilt lets me do what needs to be done, and it's not fair or right but I'll take advantage of it while I can. I can be the villain if it means saving people. _Always_.

The guards are stiff and still, obviously worried and with guns still out. I glance through them, and then to the assistant. She looks a bit less frightened than them, but then I've watched her before. She's good at her job, and she's got a hell of a tolerance for fear to be able to work with Black Mask. She could be very useful if she'll agree to work with me, and I don't see a reason that she would choose not to. It's good pay, and she must know the reputation I'm building by now. She must know it will be a lot easier to work for me than it ever was to work for the dead man behind me.

I turn to the guards, still loosely holding my knife, and tilt my head to watch them. Nausea rises sharply for a moment, but I pause and fight it down. I am _not_ letting that happen. "I will be running Black Mask's organization from now on," I announce, raising my voice to carry to all of them. "I'm fair, and I'm not going to be using you as punching bags whenever I get pissed off." They share some glances at that, and with their interest at least piqued by the idea of not being living punching bags I continue. "If you try anything I will kill you, but it'll be clean unless you try something monumentally _stupid_." I let them digest that for a second, then give a command to, "Clear the room; go home."

There's a bit of hesitation, but the two guards I've already spoken to before today are the first to obey. They holster their guns and head for the exit, and the rest are pretty quick to follow their examples. The assistant stays where she is, and when the door shuts behind the last of the guards I turn to her. I try to make sure that my walk isn't threatening, but that's hard to do. Not only did I teach myself to walk that way as a kid, to try and give off the impression I was bigger and nastier than people thought I'd be, but both Ra's and Batman taught me so much that my natural walk is more of a stalk than anything safer, or less frightening.

She watches me, head held high and chin raised. I can see the hints of fear in her, but she's doing a remarkably good job not showing them. "Red Hood," she greets, stiff and pointed, as I walk by the front of what was Black Mask's desk. She holds her ground, and I stop at the edge to let her keep about fifteen feet between us. It's not enough to stop me if I wanted to kill her, and I'm sure she knows that, but there's no point in scaring her any more than I already have.

"I haven't got any intention of killing you," I say flatly, setting my knife down on the corner of the desk.

"I imagine I would already be dead if that were not the case," she points out, clipboard held to her chest like it's a lifeline. Considering the way her fingers are tight enough on it that her knuckles are white, I'm pretty sure it is.

"True. What's your name?" I know her as Black Mask's assistant, and if I'd had the time I was intending to do a lot more research on her specifically, but with my timetable moved up I didn't have the chance.

As another wave of nausea crests I try and disguise my cringe as just leaning my hip against the corner of the desk. I'm pretty sure I manage to make it look casual. That, or she's too distracted with the threat of my very existence, and the corpse of her old boss across the room, that she doesn't notice.

Her grip loosens just a touch, and her head lowers down a bit from the artificially high arch of her neck — no longer quite as defensive, or frightened — to look at me through the glint of her glasses. "Ms. Li. Black Mask and I never traded first names."

"I can keep that policy; I won't ask for one." I tilt my head, considering her, and try to ignore the sweat I can feel at the back of my neck, and the cold sweeps trying really hard to get past my control and actually make me shudder. "I'd like you to work for me. You can keep your position, whatever your pay is, as much authority as you have, and I'm willing to negotiate about anything else. You're good at your job, you can handle the stress of it, and you're not intimidated by anyone as far as I've seen. Those are valuable traits, and I'd like you to aid me in running all of this."

"You seem to have done just fine on your own." She's testing me, I can tell by the tone and the way she raises her chin again. I'm taller than her, and I'm the one with the obvious weaponry, so it's still pretty impressive to me that she's actually talking back and not just folding down to do whatever I want her to. Most people don't handle their boss getting killed right in front of them so well.

"What I've done is a lot smaller than this whole thing, and like I said, you already know the business. Black Mask was smart and ambitious, but don't try and tell me that he actually ran this whole thing by himself. He gave _you_ orders, and you pulled it off. Of course the basics are tasked down, to the heads of the different trades and then to lower management underneath that, but you're the one at the top of it." I don't bother forcing anything into my tone, she can read whatever she wants into the flatness of it. "I'm not looking to crash this thing into the ground, and with you at my side the others will fall in line more easily. Familiar faces are a powerful force."

She shifts her grip on the clipboard, and I can see her slip into something calculating as she obviously steps back onto familiar ground. "You're obviously looking to change things; I've seen the differences in how you run what you've already taken over. It seems less efficient."

"It's less _violent_ ," I correct, sharply. "If it were less efficient I wouldn't have been able to take over as much as I did. The only difference I'm looking to make is in the collateral damage, Ms. Li. I'm not interested in seeing anyone innocent get hurt, and I'm not looking to torture or blackmail people into working for me. If you don't want the job, walk out the door with everything you have and I'll let you go. It won't be as easy without you at my side, but I'll make it work." I pause for a moment, let my words sink in, and then purposely point out, "And I do mean that choice of wording. I'm not looking for a secretary, I'm looking for you to be my partner."

_There's_ the interest. The sharp flash of ambition in her eyes, the way she looks at me like, suddenly, I'm worth listening to. Yeah, I thought that might get her. She doesn't immediately say anything, so I rest my weight a little more firmly on the desk to disguise the way my legs are threatening to shake, and let my body language stay casual, non-threatening.

"What makes you think I won't use my standing in the business to have you killed, so I can take your place?" she finally asks, not sounding like she means it in the slightest, but considering. Testing, to see how well I've thought this through.

"You mean apart from the fact you know I've held my own against Nightwing, and that I just killed your old boss?" She lifts one shoulder in a careless shrug, eyes narrowed and staring me down. Good, I need someone with backbone. "If I got proof you were planning it, or you tried and failed, I'd kill you. No second chances, no bargaining. I don't take well to people threatening my life. Secondly, you're smart enough to not _want_ to be the head of this, Ms. Li." Her eyes widen a bit. Got her. "If you're the head, you're a target. If not by other rivals, by the Batman and his group. They will try their hardest to take you down and out. If _I'm_ the official head of this business, their attention focuses on me, which leaves you free to do what you want to. Maybe he didn't know, but that's what you did with Black Mask, wasn't it?"

Her lips curl in a sharp smile, and she dips her head for a moment. "You have my interest, Red Hood. Outline your terms."

"Shouldn't be anything you'd mind. You're free to run the business however you want to, invest money where you see fit, and do what you like, so long as you keep to my rules and follow an order if I give one. I promise, once things have settled down it won't be often. In return, I'll be the official head of the business. I'll keep attention off of you, I'll give the speeches you want, attend the meetings you want me at, and I'll take a significantly lower portion of the profits than Black Mask did. Consider me your personal puppet with just a hint of attitude."

Her gaze flicks up and down my frame, lingering at the weapons and then at the blade on the desk, only a few inches from my hand. "That's very generous," she says. "Is there a reason I should trust what you're offering? You could change your mind at any point, and apart from this verbal agreement there's nothing to bind you. That would be the issue with you masked types."

I expected this too. She's useful, which consequently means she's _smart_. I've already proven I'm willing to negotiate, and more or less give her anything she might want, so part of what she'll want is something to hold me to my agreement. I'll give it to her. I already know that she doesn't actually want to be in obvious control of all of this — partly, I'm sure, because people are still morons and it's _hard_ to be a woman and hold onto that kind of power — and she might think that what I’ll give her will let her control me, but it won’t. She’ll understand that crossing me is a bad idea, that I can’t be manipulated or threatened into what she might want me to do, and that my ‘generosity’ isn’t going to change with a mood.

I push the knife a little farther away from my fingers, leaving a streak of blood behind on the desk, and reach both of my hands up to the back of my helmet. It clicks loose with the hiss of the seal breaking, and I take it off and lower it to my lap, looking back up at her. Her eyes are a little wider than normal, but after a moment they narrow and gain an obviously studying look.

I'm not wearing my domino mask, not today — I tried, but with whatever the hell kind of virus I picked up it made me feel a bit like tearing my own face off when I had it on — so I meet her eyes with mine and raise an eyebrow.

"My name's Jason," I offer. "I've got a last name, but I'll keep it to myself."

"There's something about your _eyes_ ," she says, almost to herself. That would be my lack of a soul. Eyes are the windows to the souls, and since I don’t have a soul there’s a hollowness to my gaze that makes people nervous on an instinctual level. Most of the time they rationalize it away as something they don’t want to look too closely at, which suits me just fine.

I know the smile that I flash is empty, that my eyes don’t reflect it and that there’s no feeling behind the expression. "You know my name now, Ms. Li, and my face. As a favor, I’m going to tell you right off the bat that you won’t find me in any system you check." She’d probably find me through a quick internet search, but I don’t look much like I did when I died, and most people don’t consider the deceased as viable suspects. If she had my last name it would be a different story, but unless she finds out on her own I’m not telling her that.

"Then it's not exactly anything I can hold you accountable with, is it?" she counters, matching the arch of my eyebrow with her own. I can't be entertained by it, but I think I probably would have been if I was capable. I know her being able to stand up to me is a good thing. Like Ra's enforced: respect is better than fear.

"No, it's not. I don't have a soul though, and that is." The words slip easily from my mouth, and she takes half a step back before stopping herself. I can see the instinctual reaction of horror, fear, and disgust. Nothing that phases me. "Relax, all it means is that I don't have emotion to interfere with the practicalities of what I'm doing. I might be an abomination, but I'm not cruel and I never will be. Nothing to fuel that, either."

"You should be dead," she manages, almost hissing the words.

"Yes," I agree, "I should be.” In quite a few ways, actually. “But the fact remains that I'm not, so I'm making the most of it. For _you_ , what this means is that you can trust me to keep my word so long as you keep yours. I don't feel greed, jealousy, or anything else that would make me ambitious the way you are, and I won't shirk from doing what's necessary because I don't feel guilt either. The only thing that runs me is reasoning, everything else is gone." She doesn't need to know I can still feel anger, that will only confuse things.

"Then why are you doing this?" Fair question, but not one I'm going to answer. That might reveal a little too much about who I am, and why someone with no ambition would choose to run organized crime in one of the meanest cities in the world.

"Those reasons are mine, Ms. Li, no offense meant. Now, if you decide you want me out of the picture all you have to do is start the rumor I don't have a soul. You and I both know that even the kinds of people that work for us would _never_ work under the kind of monster they’ll see me as. You could start a revolt anytime you want, and I'll go quietly.” That one’s a lie. I might resign as the head of the business pretty quietly, but I’d reinvent myself and come back as something else. I wouldn’t appreciate having to start all of this over again, and I’d probably kill her to wipe everyone out who knows my face. “I think you're smart enough to recognize how good of a deal I'm offering you, and know that anyone else who might take over isn't going to be as generous."

She pauses, and then sharply asks, "Are you dying?"

I flash another hollow smile, which makes her flinch a little bit — must be unnerving, to see someone you know has a total lack of emotion mimicking the expressions those emotions should bring — and shake my head. "I'm not dying, and I've lived without it for a long time now so yes, I’m absolutely sure of that fact. There are special circumstances, but those are my secrets. I’m not going insane, and there’s no lingering wasting sickness that’s going to haunt me until I keel over. Promise." The Lazarus Pit at least took care of those symptoms, even if the painful ache remains. That never goes away.

She straightens up a bit, stays silent for several long moments, and then finally answers, "Then I'm willing to negotiate, and consider whatever your 'rules' are. May I take a seat?"

"Didn't we just agree you can do whatever you want?" I tilt my head towards Black Mask's abandoned chair. "It's all yours." She moves without hesitation, setting the clipboard on the desk and taking the chair, and I stand to loop around the desk and sit on the other side.

I start to move, but my muscles pretty much liquify underneath me as my breath shortens, a headache bursting to life behind my eyes. Staying still for the conversation didn’t help, at all. I lean back against the desk, breathing shallowly to get the headache under control, and try to force at least a little bit of strength back into my legs. She crosses one leg over the other and watches me, studying until I can stand and make my way around to sit at the right side of the desk, only about two feet from her.

"You're certain you aren't dying?" she asks dryly.

I set my helmet down to the side and nod, reading the sarcasm in her voice but not really interested in faking a reaction to it. "Like I said, Ms. Li, relax. There are circumstances. I'm not dying, just temporarily down with whatever virus I managed to catch. Even us masked types get sick every now and then."

"But usually those masked types aren't _soulless_ ; you understand my caution."

"Yeah, I understand. You can hold onto your judgment until I get over it, if you want." She seems to think about it for a second, then shakes her head very briefly. She almost reminds me of Talia, in a way. Just much more sharply intelligent in her threats, and less physical about it.

"Not necessary. If you die, I'll simply have to replace you." She arches an eyebrow, taps her nails against the arm of the chair, and crisply orders, "Now put your helmet back on so we can discuss terms, Red Hood. I don't need anyone walking in and finding out you're barely even an adult, no matter how physically capable you might be. And I would like the mess cleaned out before it starts to smell."

Yeah, a lot like Talia. I can definitely work with her.

I pull my helmet back on, resealing it, and snag a tissue from the box on the desk — I'm not sure why Black Mask would have tissues, he doesn't seem the type to cry, but I'm not going to judge — and lean back to collect my knife from the desk. It's a little difficult to straighten back up, but I make do so I can sit there and clean my knife. I'd like to put it back in its sheath, preferably without having to clean the sheath later. Well, maybe I _do_ know why Black Mask has tissues on his desk.

"Fair enough. Do you want to start, or should I?"

She eases into the chair, faces me a little more directly, and reaches underneath the desk with one hand to retrieve a small metal trash bin that she places at my feet. Right before she nudges the box of tissues closer to me. Hm; I can work with that.

"By all means, Red Hood. Tell me what you're thinking."

* * *

Getting back home to my safe house is a struggle, but I manage it. Of course, once everything is safely locked, and I've forced myself through what's necessary to clean up the evidence, I slide to the floor against the wall, about ten feet to the left of the bathroom, and lean my head back against it. I finally, _finally_ , let the cold sweats make me shudder. I feel _awful_ , even if it's in a purely physical sense.

I'm varying between too hot and too cold within minutes, with no change in my environment. I feel sticky from the sweat I've been pouring out, and gross, and a shower would be tremendously helpful if my muscles weren't threatening to shake with even the smallest effort. To add on top of all of that is the swirl of nausea that I've so far been able to hold down, but comes in waves and spikes that threaten my control. I'm not going to be able to hold that for too much longer.

All in all, even though I'm finally in control of Black Mask's organization, and my plans are a giant step towards being complete, I can only focus on how awful all this is. Ms. Li fell into line, agreed to my rules and started making all the arrangements, and it looks like everything is going to run smoothly from now on. It took all day, but that’s not really a surprise. Lots to do. There might be some resistance from the heads of the businesses that I'm making the biggest changes to — prostitution, mostly — but I can kill anyone who tries to stop me. Just, not right now.

Right now, I have to get through what I'm pretty sure is the _flu_.

That's so unbelievable.

I made very sure to pick a studio apartment that had the usually unfortunate aspect of having only a single window, and creaky hinges on everything, so when the window lock clicks open and it starts to swing open, I hear it. Useful, since I'm not looking at it.

I drop a hand to the gun on my right thigh and pull it out, getting it up at about the same time that a lean, blue and black figure drops onto my floor. _Great_. I hold the gun trained at somewhere around the middle of his torso, not that it discourages him, and do my damned best to ignore how hard it is to hold that position, and how much my arm wants to shake. For the sake of not letting him know how bad off I am at the moment, I don't try and stand up to greet him.

"Get out of my apartment, Nightwing." He steps closer instead, and I thumb off the safety and slip my finger in to hold the trigger. His expression is angry, mouth a thin line, but his hands are empty. "Not bluffing. Get out or I shoot you and throw you out the window."

"Black Mask," he says, completely ignoring my threat though he keeps his distance. Not far enough as far as I'm concerned.

"What about him?"

Oh, _that_ irritates him. His hands clench for a moment, and his mouth curls in something close to a snarl. "You killed him, didn't you?"

"Prove it," I shoot back. "Try and arrest me if you want to, _Dick_ , but we both know I'll be out in days. You don't have any _evidence_ , and I'm not going to sit down and just give you some kind of confession. I wouldn't try putting me in front of a court anyway; remember what I know?"

His face tightens, and then he's lunging forward. I recognize the evasive pattern, but I don't actually want to shoot Dick in the face, so I pretend not to and let him slip around and grab my wrist, twisting it to disarm me. His hands curl in my jacket and heft me to my feet, slamming me back against the wall. I grunt in pain, breathe through the nausea, and try not to show the pain pounding at the back of my skull or the weakness in my limbs.

"Who _are_ you?!" he demands, again, and yanks me forward to slam me against the wall again. "How _dare_ you threaten my family like that you son of a bitch?!"

He's reaching up for my helmet before I realize it, and I jerk and snarl, trying to shove him away. "I don't _think_ so, _Dick_. Keep your—”

His elbow slams into my ribs, targeting the damage that hasn't healed from our last fight, and I choke on my words and bend forward, gasping in pain. His fingers are nimble, always have been, and they find the catch at the back of my neck without a problem, and before I can recover and lash out to get him away from me. The hiss of the seal breaking is like I'm being damned all over again, and the tug as he yanks it off my head and flings it across the room barely even registers. He pushes me back against the wall, I look up, and he goes _very_ still.

Not surprising, but then nothing is surprising to me anymore. I'm not even capable of the adrenaline from a fight or flight response, that's all to do with fear and I can't _feel_ that. I knew that eventually Dick would find out who I was — never expected it this soon, but I didn’t expect to get sick either — and I knew that he’d initially react pretty much just like this. I can read shock in the stiffness of his muscles and the part of his mouth, and I let him have it while I catch my breath and fight the nausea.

I wait for him to get enough coherence together to give me a verbal response, and after a long few moments of staying frozen he finally gives it.

" _Jason?_ " he asks, quietly, and his tone is made of shock and disbelief. "I— You're dead, the Joker _killed_ you."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious."

His fingers curl in my jacket, tightening to fists, and there's something furious about the way his mouth twists in a glare. "Whoever the _hell_ you are, you're not my brother." His tone is dark and angry, threatening, and my eyes narrow a little bit. "He's not capable—”

"You'd like to _think_ that, wouldn't you?" I snap. "Sorry, _Dick_ , people change when they get beaten to within about an inch of their life and left to die. I might not be who you remember, but I _am_ your brother." The nausea comes back with a _vengeance_ , only enhanced by the pain from my cracked rib, and I draw in a shallow breath and close my eyes for a second. "If I throw up on you, take it _personal_ , Dick."

I'm not sure if it's a good thing when he pulls me away from the wall — after a second of hesitation — and back through the open door into the bathroom, pushing me to my knees in front of the toilet. It's not a second too soon though, and I give up on control and let myself retch, emptying the excuse for breakfast into the bowl.

I can feel gloved fingers combing through my hair, pulling it back away from my face as the other hand massages the back of my neck. He waits until I'm apparently done, breathing hard and trying to ignore a lot of the situation, before asking, "Were you poisoned?"

I snort, and then reach up a little shakily to pull the lever to flush away the evidence. "Like I'd let anyone get that close, it's just a virus."

"You're _sick?_ "

"Yes, you _jackass_. If you want to arrest me you're never going to get a better chance, but I _really_ wouldn't recommend it." His hands don't leave me, and I resist another rising swell of nausea for a couple seconds before giving in. Not that there's much of anything that comes out. Bile, mostly.

It's Dick that reaches past and flushes this time, and then I must lose a second just trying to breathe because the next thing I know there's skin pressing against my forehead. Dick's hand, free of the glove.

" _Jesus_ ," he mutters, and I don't think I was supposed to hear it. "You're _burning_ , Jason."

"I noticed," I answer flatly. "Look, either arrest me or fuck off. I don't need your help and I don't want it." His hand stays against my skin, and despite my words I ease into the touch because his hand feels cool, calming, and solid. Oh _no_ I cannot afford to do this.

"Too bad," he growls. "If you're really Jason than you know damn well I'm not letting you out of my sight. This is a nice convenient time for us to talk, and you to tell me what the _hell_ happened to you. If you stay down, rest, and talk to me, I won’t even call B and tell him I found you.”

Oh, _fuck_. Right, yeah, that would be bad. I might be able to blackmail Dick into not taking me to prison — or maybe, now, play on his family loyalty — but Bruce? He'd never go for that, no matter what I threatened he'd find a way to lock me away somewhere. Privately, if he had to. With this virus I wouldn't be able to stop him, not even with the wounds I gave him, and especially not with Dick at his side.

"That's not fair," I manage to say, even if I'm leaning against his hand and letting his fingers comb through my hair in a steady pattern. No one has touched me in _so_ long, and I feel so _awful_ right now.

"If you wanted me to play fair, Jason, you wouldn't have come back as a _murderer_." His hand draws away, and then he's gripping me by my jacket at both shoulders and dragging me up to my feet. I manage to keep my balance, but it's a close thing. "Come on. I'm going to grab you a bowl, and you're going to sleep this off until tomorrow. _Then_ you're going to answer my questions."

"Are you fucking _joking_ , Dick? I'm not—”

"Shut up," he snarls, "or I swear to god I'll call B right now and let him deal with you. I'm the _far_ nicer one and you know it, Jay." He pulls me over to the sink, and I can see the determined set to his mouth in the mirror, over my shoulder. "Rinse your mouth out," he orders, giving me a fairly gentle shove as he lets go of my jacket. I glare at him, but the threat of him calling Bruce is an effective one.

I lean down, bracing one of my hands against the counter as I pull the handle of the sink up with the other. It _does_ feel good to rinse the taste out of my mouth, though it lingers at the back of my throat. I try and avoid my own face in the mirror, and his face too while I’m at it. I must look awful, and I'm really not interested in finding out exactly how weak I might seem in comparison to him. Even though I'm taller, bigger, and better armed.

He grips my arm and pulls me out of the bathroom, not giving me a chance to escape on the way out the door and straight over to my bed. "Strip down; I'll grab that bowl."

I _want_ to argue, but a tremor that slides down my back and nearly buckles my knees convinces me it's a bad idea. I slowly peel off my jacket, closing my eyes and swallowing, breathing to force myself to focus. While Dick's back is turned I tuck my knife beneath my pillow, in the sheath, and set all four of my guns — the obvious one on my thigh, the two at the small of my back, and the one tucked down inside my boot — on the nightstand. The armor is a little harder to do, but I manage. Finally I peel off the shirt nearly stuck to my skin with sweat, and drop it to the floor. My pants are easier, mostly because all I have to do is unbutton them and pull down the zipper, and they drop right down to my ankles. Of course, that leaves them caught on my boots.

Cautiously I turn around and sink down to the bed, purposely ignoring Dick's figure as he heads back towards me. It's not comfortable in the slightest to be leaned down, undoing the laces of my boots, but I can hold the nausea at bay even if the shivers are persistent. I ignore his legs as they come into view, and then the clink of the porcelain bowl getting set down next to my guns.

"I can do that." I ignore him, not even dignifying that offer with a response, and purposely flick my foot to send the boot flying up at his calf. "Alright," he says, with a touch of irritation, as he slips to the side of the boot's path, "nevermind." It's petty more than anything else, but I flick the second boot at him too. I resist doing the same with my pants.

I'm a little too tired to do anything but go with it when he pushes me back by my shoulder and wrestles the sheets out from underneath me. The way he tucks them over me, arranging the pillow beneath my head, almost feels gentle. His hand touches my forehead again, as I curl into myself and try to get some hint of warmth back in my limbs. Pointless, I know that, but the sheets aren't enough.

"Have you got any blankets?" Dick asks, and I manage a jerky shake of my head. "Damn. Alright." I can hear his footsteps, but I bury my head into the pillow and try to breathe, try not to shake. There are some noises I can't immediately identify, don't try to, and then the bed dips. I stir, starting to pull my head up, and a bare hand soothes up over my back and then to my lower left arm, wrapping around my wrist and pulling it up. I don't fully understand until metal clicks around my skin, and I recognize that he's handcuffing me to the bed.

That's so—

My train of thought derails at skin pressing warm up against my back, one hand sliding down my free arm to interlace with my fingers. "Dick—”

"Hush," he says softly, cutting me off almost immediately. "It's alright, Jay. We can talk about all of this later, I promise."

Questions hover at the tip of my tongue — like _why_ Dick is in my bed and apparently out of his suit — but another shudder shakes my shoulders, and the energy to argue deserts me. I ease into the touch of his hand, pulling it to my chest and curling around it. His warmth _does_ feel good, pressed up against my back and with small curls of air touching the back of my neck. I suppose I can just take it for now.

After I get some sleep I can start thinking about picking the handcuffs, getting up, and maybe punching Dick in the face for doing any of this. No, _definitely_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! So, here's the next chapter, from Dick's PoV, as promised! Hope you enjoy!

I never expected the Red Hood to be Jason, not _ever_.

I never thought I'd see that face again, even sharpened with age as it was. His hair was shorter, but still the same black apart from a streak of white hair over the left side of his forehead, hanging down almost into his eye, both of which were greener than I remembered, even if they were still mostly blue. There was something disturbing about the way he looked at me that I couldn't figure out. Still can't figure out. Something flat and cold that tells me something is _wrong_.

I mean, I knew something wasn't right when I was able to track Red Hood back from Black Mask's headquarters to this safe house, and I lingered outside for a while expecting a trap or some kind of trick, but finally decided that he actually really didn't see me following him. I slipped through the window — creaky hinges, smart — and confronted him, rushed him, got him up against the wall. He didn't put up as much of a fight as I expected him to, honestly, but then his helmet was off and I could see his _face_. He pretty much gave up all pretense of fighting me after that.

Him being _sick_ , with something that looks an awful lot like a mundane case of the flu, is just weird, but it explains a lot about why he was so much easier to get close to, and why the single blow to his ribs paused him when it didn’t in our actual fight. I couldn't bring myself to rage and yell at him while he looked so down and out, with his skin pale and sweaty, and his shoulders shaking with trembles he was obviously trying not to show. My loyalty to family, my urge to protect every other member of the people I've claimed as my own — even if I thought that person was dead and gone — kicked in with a _vengeance_.

I'm still pissed at him, maybe even more so now that I've had some time to come to terms with the fact that it really is Jason lying next to me, but I'll grill him after he's gotten some sleep. I don't think he'll answer any of my questions, but I'm not going to press him while he's this sick. I just don’t like the idea of going after him like that, not knowing that he’s here and _alive_. Not even knowing that he's Red Hood, that he killed Black Mask and took over his operations, and that he put _bullets_ through Bruce's lower arm and calf. There has to be something about it that we don't know.

For starters, how the _hell_ is he alive?

Jason died to the Joker. It tore Bruce _apart_ , we _buried_ my little brother in a coffin, and he was _dead_. What happened? Bruce never said anything about Jason's grave being disturbed, and he would have told me. He would have, I believe that completely. Bruce can be pretty cagey with information sometimes, but if he’d had even a _clue_ that Jason was alive, or that he was Red Hood, I would have been told. Not even Bruce would keep information that important to himself.

The talk about Red Hood started in Hong Kong, before he came to Gotham. Nothing really big, but he made a name for himself over there before he uprooted and came to our city. He was ruthless and efficient in how he took control of pieces of Black Mask’s empire — and the whole thing now, I guess — and he proved he was dangerous when he shot Bruce. Surface wounds, nothing vital, and clearly aimed to temporarily cripple and nothing more, but that makes it _worse_. They were _aimed_ that way, which means he’s a very good shot on top of being skilled in hand-to-hand.

God, Jason shot Bruce. _Twice_. The brother I remember would never do that, but then the brother I remember would never have become a crime lord either. He might have had an attitude, a temper, but he was a good kid underneath that. He really was. He _cared_ so much about everyone, no matter who they were, and it was easy to see that he _hated_ the criminals who went after people weaker than them. Especially kids, or women. Jason could never walk past anyone hurting a kid, even if he wasn’t in costume. There were moments where that passion got him in trouble, especially with Bruce, but that never changed.

What happened to the grinning kid, always eager to please — maybe even too much so — and happy to save anyone, dressed in the colors of Robin? Where did this angry, cold, snarling man with a gun in each hand and a leather jacket over his shoulders come from? What happened to my brother?

Jason's fingers clench down over mine, another shudder shaking him, and I tighten my grip and murmur meaningless reassurances into his sweat-dampened hair. It probably wasn't smart of me to get into the bed with him, but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving my sick brother — no matter how changed he is from how I remember — by himself with not nearly enough blankets to keep him warm or help him sweat this out. At least not until he's firmly asleep and not in this half-conscious daze, and I can slip out to grab more blankets, whatever medicine I can pilfer from Alfred's cupboards without getting caught, and something soup-related that won't be too hard on his stomach.

I'm not _stupid_ , though, and I did handcuff one of his arms up above his head, to the metal frame of the bed. He didn't seem to like it, but he didn't argue either. I don't think it will hold him, but maybe it might do while he's only sort of aware.

Jason isn't the brother I remember, and not just in the obvious, murderer and crime lord ways. He's almost as tall as Bruce, wider in the shoulders than me by a bit, and every bit of him is carved muscle. He's missing some of the scars that I remember him getting as Robin, but he's also got a small collection of new ones that look, primarily, like knife wounds. None of them look new, and even the newest one I can find still looks months old and long since healed. He's got the bruising from my fight with him, dark over his side where I’m fairly sure I cracked one of his ribs, but it didn’t seem to change anything about the way he moved. Until I deliberately hit it, he didn't even seem to notice. Even then, it only made him pause for a few moments, drove the breath from him for a second. He didn't even make a sound.

I push a little closer to him, lining more of my skin up against his, and I can feel the tiny shiver down his back. The way he trembles but pushes back anyway, head tilting towards me as his hand flexes around my fingers. I keep whispering to him until he settles, breathing ragged but a little more steady now, a little less like he's falling apart.

I close my eyes for a moment, wincing. The only conclusion I can come to is that Jason is _used_ to pain.

The way he ignored his injury, that he _killed_ Black Mask while coming down with whatever this is — by all accounts in a hand-to-hand fight, and it was fast — and the way he fights, the way he moves. I hit him with my batons and he barely flinched. Those shocks can knock normal people unconscious, even to masks it's painful and debilitating. Even to _me_. But Jason wrapped his hands around them and took it, spoke through it, ripped them out of my hands and barely even seemed affected. It was worrying when I was fighting him as Red Hood, but now?

What _happened_ to my brother? Why can he manage pain like that? What taught him to take that much pain and keep moving? None of the possibilities are good, and adding into that how ruthless he's being, his skill…

He wasn't fighting me seriously, I could tell. I have no idea what he's capable of, but how he drove me back out of his warehouse was efficient and precise in a way that Jason never was before. He was strong, stubborn, and pretty skilled before he died, but he didn't have the kind of _precision_ that the Red Hood used to force me back. If he'd wanted me dead, maybe I would be. Bruce definitely would be.

I’ve seen the recording from Bruce’s mask of the confrontation, and the two shots were within seconds, and completely out of the blue. If Jason had chosen to aim for the head instead, or the chest, he could have killed Bruce right there. No fight, no struggle, and no warning. It would have been clean, and nearly instant if he aimed it right, which he would have, I’m sure of it. Instead, he told both of us that he didn't want us dead, and didn't have any interest in fighting us. He reinforced that all he wanted was both of us off his back, and he made it happen by shooting Bruce, and threatening me to back off by telling me he knew our secrets. He knew what it would take. It was more frightening when I thought he was just an enemy that had somehow gotten all of our information and was using it as a weapon. I'd like to think that Jason would never do that to all of us.

But then, I don't know anything about this version of Jason. I _can't_ think of him as my little brother, not if I want to be able to push him as hard as I might need to. I might have to try and disassociate him from who I knew, just think of him as a crime lord and nothing else, because I _need_ the information that he has. I have to know what happened to turn him into this, why he’s become a crime lord, how he could shoot Bruce, threaten me, and not show even a hint of guilt?

I slowly pull my hand away from his, and he shudders and reaches after me. I evade his grasping hand, sliding my hand up his arm to squeeze, lightly. "It's alright, Jay," I say softly. "I'll just be a few minutes, okay?"

His head shifts in what I decide to call a nod, and I carefully slide away from him. He curls in on himself, and he looks so _miserable_ — the hand curled above his head and lying limply against the pillow, the steel of the cuff around his wrist, doesn't help — that I can just feel my resolve crumbling into bits.

Disassociating might not be possible.

Bruce should know — he _deserves_ to know — but what he might do… He might want to put Jason in Arkham, or a specially designed cell, and with him this sick? Even if it's mostly gone by tomorrow morning, I can't stomach the idea of putting Jason in a cell. Not yet, and not until I know what's happened. He might deserve it, but none of us know what drove him to this and I at least need to know _that_ before I make any kind of a decision. If it’s not his fault, if he was subjected to some kind of brainwashing, or torture, or _anything_ to make him this way, then he deserves help, not a prison cell.

So no matter how much it sinks in my gut and feels _wrong_ , I _can't_ tell Bruce that I’ve found Jason, or that he’s the Red Hood. Not yet.

I start to pull the pieces of my suit back on, watching the upper portion of Jason's back that’s above the sheets, and reading into the lines carved into his skin. I don't see any pattern, and I definitely don't see anything talking about any kind of torture, or mind control, or brainwashing, or _anything_. They just look like normal scars to me. Well, normal for one of us, anyway. In fact, he's even got less than I would expect for someone in our line of business. Then again, torture doesn’t have to leave marks behind, not if someone’s good at it.

Nothing about how he acted said 'traumatized,’ though. He was cold, ruthless, and he picked his words and said exactly what he needed to to make me back off and leave him alone. It was all just _efficient_ above everything else. I don't understand how the bright, grinning — angry, but that wasn't really his fault, it was just how Jason _was_ — child that I remember became _this_.

I zip up the last of my suit and reach for my phone, slipping to the front door of Jason's studio apartment and quietly unlocking it. I glance at him one more time — his brow is furrowed, face tight, but his eyes are closed and definitely not looking at me — before slipping outside and tugging the door mostly closed behind me. it feels a bit like a betrayal to punch the saved number into my phone, but I do it anyway.

Luckily, the corridor is empty.

_"Master Richard, what can I do for you?"_ Alfred's tone is sharp, almost like he _knows_ I'm doing something I shouldn't be. It wouldn't surprise me.

"Alfred, I need a favor." He doesn't immediately respond, but we've known each other long enough for me to know that's permission to continue. "I need some warm blankets, whatever medicine we've got hanging around for a case of the flu, and something light to eat. Please don't ask questions, and _please_ don't tell B. It's a… friend."

There's another few moments of silence, a long-suffering sigh, and then Alfred answers, _"I suppose you have an address for me, Master Richard?"_

I let out my own sigh and hang my head for a moment. "Yeah, I do. Thanks, Alfred. If I had another option…”

_"I know. I'll collect what you've asked for, text me the address when you're ready for me to come by, Master Richard. Though I expect a bit more of an explanation when I arrive."_

That's not going to be fun. Maybe I can just hold the door open and let him see the problem himself. He won't be happy with me, but maybe he'll understand why I'm keeping it from Bruce for the moment. Just for now. I'll tell him as soon as I have more information to give him, I _will_ , but for the moment I need to be able to talk to Jason on my own. I'll make sure Jason doesn't have the chance to disappear on us; I’ll drag him all the way to the Cave if I have to.

"You’ll get one. I can just give you the address now if you’ve got a pen handy?"

I can almost see the way that Alfred would be looking at me if we were face-to-face. One eyebrow raised, the slightest hint of condescension and the question of: 'really, you asked that?' Of course Alfred has a pen. Alfred always has a pen on him somewhere, it's part of his magic. Also, I'm convinced it's because Bruce needs him to take notes of everything, because Bruce will inevitably forget to do some small item at the very end of the list. Usually, something along the lines of 'eat food.'

_"Go ahead, Master Richard."_

I rattle off the address, turning around briefly to check the apartment number on Jason's door. Alfred doesn't say anything, but I don't have to hear it to know his reaction. It's a decent part of town — a ways from Old Gotham, and any hint of Crime Alley — but it's not the actual _nice_ part of town. It's a long way from 'nice,' actually. Especially by Alfred's standards. Plus, he always seems to know all of our safe houses, and he’ll know this doesn’t match up to anyone’s.

He repeats his promise to come by, hangs up, and I tuck the phone away again. Which is about when I realize that there's a pair of wide green eyes staring at me from the end of the hall, peering around the corner. I turn my head to look, and the top of a small girl's head vanishes back around the edge of the wall. Despite my own mood, despite _everything_ , I smile.

"It's alright," I call, "you can come out."

She doesn't, but an older girl does. Middle teenage years if I had to guess, on the shorter side, with the same green eyes and brown hair as the little one. After a moment, the younger girl — definitely only about six or seven — slips out behind the older. I give them both my friendliest smile, and watch the older girl's eyes flick from me, to the slightly-open door of Jason's apartment, and then back.

Slowly, she approaches. She looks wary, and I let her come to me and keep my hands at my sides to not show any kind of a threat, intended or not. The younger girl is clinging to the older girl's hand, mostly hidden behind her leg, and I'm almost positive that they're sisters. Apart from the shared color of eyes and hair, there are some facial markers that are nearly identical, and the way they’re acting gives me enough to pretty much call it. Their hesitance confuses me a little, but I don’t let it show. I'm not the big bad Bat, and I'm definitely not any of the villains. Two younger girls should trust me, shouldn't they?

"Nightwing, sir?" the older girl says. Her voice is shaking a little bit, but she's fairly steady and she's partially shifted in front of her little sister, like she’s shielding her from me.

"What is it?" I ask, gently, facing her and keeping the smile on my face.

She glances towards the barely-open door across from me, looks back up to my mask, and then asks, "Did something happen to Jay?" My heart stutters for a second at hearing that nickname out of her mouth, at the _sincerity_ that she says it with, the _worry_. "Please say he's alright?"

The smaller girl peers around the edge of her sister's leg, and I swallow before toning my smile down a touch from the brightness it's at. I make it softer, kinder, with the ease of practice. "He's fine, I promise. Nothing worse than a case of the flu, and I was just calling somebody to grab him some food." The older girl looks relieved, and I can't help asking, "Do you both know him?"

She nods, tightening her grip on her little sister's hand. "He's our neighbor, he replaced the man who was—” She cuts off, pales a little bit, and looks away. "He replaced the other guy. He's better, he's nice. He never gets upset with us playing, or angry, or yells at us."

I move slowly, sinking down to one knee to face both of them more on their level. There's a suspicion in my gut that I'm almost sure is right, but I have to ask, to be sure. "Did the other guy do those things?" I keep my voice quiet, let the smile fade to just a tiny hint of one. The suspicion hardens to cold knowledge when the older girl flinches, and the younger one vanishes back behind her sister's leg. "Could you tell me what happened?"

Her green eyes dart to the side again, and she swallows. "I shouldn't," she says quietly. "Jay asked us not to tell anyone."

There are at least a dozen possibilities, but I hope the one I'm thinking of is right. If the guy who used to live here hurt these two girls, and Jason either killed him or drove him off, can I really be mad? "Hey, I'm _Nightwing_. Your secret's safe with me, pinkie promise." I can be good with kids when I need to, when the situation calls for it. I remember what it was like, sort of. Not the kind of kids like these ones, I was a circus kid myself, but I know the basic mindset.

The little girl stares at me for a moment, along with her sister, and then reaches her free hand forward. Pinkie extended. Solemnly, I meet her hand and curl my pinkie around hers, giving it a small shake. Her eyes brighten a touch, and then she looks up at her sister and tugs at her hand. It's nothing verbal, but even I get the message.

I meet the gaze of the older girl, who still looks unconvinced that she should be telling me anything. She speaks anyway. "The other man, the one who was in that apartment before, he was mean and loud. He used to corner us on our way up the stairs and pull us to the roof and—” There's raw _fear_ on her face, and she swallows and cringes away. I force myself not to gather her into a hug, no matter how much my mind insists she needs one. She's not going to welcome it, not with what she’s implying.

"Jay was up there. He— He saved us."

"You know who he is," I prompt, softly. It's the only thing that makes sense. If Jason was already living here they would have known him, but if he was on the way somewhere else, or just on the roof for any number of reasons, he would have been wearing his helmet.

The older girl's eyes flatten out, and her free hand balls to a fist. " _No_ , it doesn't matter. He protected us, he _saved_ us!"

The little girl's eyes narrow, and she actually looks angry with me. "Mr. Jay is _nice!_ He helps! It doesn't matter that he's wrong!" At the last word the older girl whips her head down and hushes her sister, pulling her a bit more back behind the leg.

"Wrong?" I echo. "What do you mean?" Does this… Is she talking about whatever it is that doesn't seem right with Jason? Whatever that _thing_ is that he looks at me with that just _feels_ wrong?

"That's not our secret," the older girl says, half to me and half to her sister.

I consider for a second. "Is it something about how he looks at you?" The younger girl hides behind her sister, the older one's lips thin out to a flat, stubborn line. Yeah, I’m not going to get anything there. "Nevermind, I won't ask. For right now, I promise, all I'm trying to do is make him better. He really does have the flu. I can't promise anything after that; it depends on what kind of answers he has for my questions. Does that sound fair?"

The older girl shakes her head, but she doesn't argue with me even though she obviously wants to. She steps back, and tugs her sister away from me and back down the corridor. I want to call her back, and I want more information from her, but I swallow back the urge and get to my feet instead, watching them go. Once they round the corner back out of sight I let myself sigh, and then head back into Jason's apartment. I close and lock the door, and immediately look up to Jason. His eyes are closed, and his face is a little more relaxed in what I'm pretty sure is sleep, but even from all the way across the apartment he doesn't look good.

I cross the room silently, or what I think is silently until I step about ten feet away from him and his eyes snap open. He stares up at me, and I can see the coil of muscle in what's clearly a willingness to fight, the slide of his right hand underneath the pillow — did he stash a weapon in there? — before he seems to recognize me. There’s nothing like relief in his gaze, but he does ease out again. The moment of tension costs him another shudder, and I carefully circle the bed and climb back onto the other side of it. I don't take my suit back off to warm him up, not this time, but I do sit down right next to his back and press my side into his back. I touch his elbow with my gloved hand, gently, and then run it up his arm and to his hair.

"Doing alright, Jason?"

He makes a noise that I think might be an attempt at a snort, and I can see his stomach clench for a moment, his jaw tighten. I trust Jason to be conscious enough to reach for the bowl if he needs it — and I'm going to pretend that bowl isn't right next to four separate guns — so I don't automatically react to prevent disaster like I would with a lot of other people. The moment passes just fine without my help, and I carefully run my fingers through his hair and along the back of his neck. Sweat clings to the fingertips of my gloves, and I spare a wince while he's not looking.

"Fine, _Dick_ ," he manages, even though his voice sounds rough and weak. "I don't need your help, leave me alone."

"I'm giving it anyway, and there's no way I'm letting you disappear on me. Suck it up, Jason, I'm going to be here until you're better." He makes a small, snarling noise, but doesn't answer me with any real words, so I lean my back against the wall at the head of his bed and close my eyes for a second. "So you know, I called Alfred." I can see and _feel_ Jason tense. "I asked him for supplies, that's all. He won't know who you are until he gets here, and I asked him not to tell B. I meant what I said, Jason. As long as you cooperate, I won't tell Bruce you're here. Not while you're sick, anyway."

The tension might have stayed, but then a shiver shakes all the way down his spine and he doesn't have any choice but to go limp after it's through with him. His breath is shallow, and normally I'd probably move my hand down to his shoulder, but I know the kind of muscle aches that go with the flu. Instead, I keep up the soft, steady comb of my fingers through his hair, along his scalp. Not too hard, he'll be sensitive and sore too, more receptive to pain, but enough to remind him that I'm here.

No one can resist head-petting when they're under the weather.

"Try and get some rest, Jason. I'll be here."

I can see the corner of his mouth lift again in another snarl, but no sounds come out and he doesn't turn on me or tense up again, so I take it as consent. A twisted kind of consent, anyway. It's not like I'm asking for his permission to stick around.

I just have to know what happened. I _have_ to.

Jason does fall asleep, after a little while, and I stay up to wait for Alfred. I keep up my idle strokes through my brother’s hair, and I like to think it keeps him resting but that’s mostly just my own head. It might have helped him get to sleep, but I doubt it’s helping keep him that way.

When he gets here, Alfred isn't as angry as I thought he'd be. Instead he's shocked, disappointed, saddened, and then — finally — accepting. He understands my reasons without even making me say them, and he drops off a few heavy blankets, some carefully labeled pills, and a few cartons of soup that I'm pretty sure are chicken noodle. His looks at Jason are long and lingering, but he doesn't try and go over to see my should-be-dead brother, which I'm thankful for.

It's not nearly as bad as it could have been, actually. Jason is firmly unconscious, and not even Alfred's presence wakes him up, so Alfred doesn’t have to see the thing in Jason’s eyes that isn’t right, or hear his flat, sarcastic tone. He doesn't even wake up after the old man is gone, or when I carry two of the blankets over and drape them on top of the thin sheets, tucking them in over his shoulders and down around his neck. He stirs, and he makes a sound I can't identify, but he doesn't wake up. The effort, and the guilt I feel over not telling Bruce immediately, is all worth it for a moment as I see the tension in his face loosen out, and see his body start to uncurl from the tight ball that it was in now that it’s got more warmth.

I take up a position at his back, in my suit, lying down on top of the blankets, and pressed close to share the comfort of my presence even through the barrier. I watch the nape of his neck for a long, _long_ time before my eyes droop, and listen to his breathing for even longer before the sound starts to prey on the eternal tiredness in my bones.

Eventually, I dip into my own sleep.

* * *

When I finally wake up, it feels like I slept pretty much forever. When I push up — only confused for about half a second by the sight of the back of Jason’s head before memories click in — and glance around, that feeling is pretty much confirmed. There's sun shining in through the window, past the edges of the blinds I'd let down last night, which means it had to have been… Jesus, a _long_ time. It was pretty late when I followed Jason back to his home, but that was by normal peoples' standards; only about eight.

For there to be sun, that means I slept at least six hours, not counting the amount of time that I was talking with the girls from last night, or Alfred, or how long I was watching Jason before I fell asleep myself. That's a longer block of uninterrupted sleep than I've gotten in at _least_ weeks, but I've been running myself pretty hard with the whole 'Red Hood' mystery in town. I guess that's solved now, at least partially.

I stretch out, and consider dropping to the floor to do some kind of waking warm up routine, or a workout, but let the idea ago. Yeah, no way. In fact, I could do with not being in my suit anymore either, and a shower, and maybe some food. I wonder what Jason has in his kitchen apart from the soup that Alfred brought last night. He's gotta have _something_ edible in there.

I head around the foot of the bed, pausing briefly to look at Jason and then pausing a few seconds more to take him in. He really… It almost tricks me into thinking that this is what it could have been like if he hadn’t died.

His face is mostly buried in the pillow, blankets pulled high to his throat, and the only two things that stop the view from being calming is the glint of metal cuffing his left arm to the head of the bed, and the shock of white hair at his forehead, just slightly to the left of the middle. Proof that he's not as peaceful as he looks, and whatever's between us isn't going to be easy. I _hope_ he can be my brother again, I really do, but I'm not that optimistic. I know some of what he's done in Gotham, and I can guess at the rest.

None of it is good.

I turn away, glancing around and finding a dresser pressed against the wall of the built-in bathroom. The apartment is square, and one corner is walled off for the necessities while the rest of it shares space for a bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Jason's bed is pressed into the reduced section, in the far corner away from the door, and between the outer wall of the apartment and the section that makes up the bathroom. It's not especially cramped — partly because there's not all that much in here — but it's a step below what most people would consider comfortable.

There are lots of cases scattered around the room — I can only _guess_ the kind of tools or guns in them — and there's a laptop set up on the couch that's wired into a monitor that I think serves as a TV, but apart from the discarded red helmet and the guns on his nightstand it's not obvious from a first glance that Jason is anything but a normal civilian. That means he _has_ to have civilian clothes.

I head for the dresser, pulling open drawers about as quietly as I can, and my suspicions are confirmed. Jason has normal clothes apart from his costume, which actually is pretty casual just by itself, considering. A pair of reinforced brown boots, a brown leather jacket, black reinforced gloves, loose black jeans, and a white t-shirt, minus the armor and the helmet. Take away the obvious weapons and he could pass for a normal person in public.

I pick out a pair of light blue jeans and a plain white tank top, and get to undressing out of the Nightwing suit. It's comfortable, it _has_ to be, but not for really long stretches of time, and usually not to sleep in. Too many built-in pouches, weapons, and tools.

I'm down to my black briefs, the only thing that fits underneath the suit, when a rough voice cuts in, "Not bad."

I startle a little bit, whip around, and find Jason's eyes open and watching me. He doesn't look great, and there's a definite haze to his eyes that makes me think he's not anywhere close to alright, but he's looking right at me. At my face, specifically, which is almost a new experience for me. Usually when I start stripping down people get the really aggravating inability — I resigned myself to it — to look me in the eyes.

"How long have you been awake?" I ask, resisting the urge to tug back into my suit like I should be ashamed of changing, or of my own skin. Yeah, I got over _that_ a long time ago too.

He blinks, raises an eyebrow, and shifts a little bit. Not really out from underneath the blankets, but enough to raise his head about an inch. "I caught the start of the show."

"Wasn't meant to be a show," I counter, and he makes a dry little noise that feels like it should come with a smirk, but doesn't.

"You strip down right in front of my face, it's a show.” He settles down, resting his head and clearly getting comfortable again. “Don't let me stop you from putting clothes back on, Dick. View’s good but it’s your body." That makes me pause for a second, trying to figure out some kind of inflection or background meaning behind his words, but don’t get anything. To cover up that failure I reach for his clothes, the ones I set on top of the dresser, and he follows my hands towards them. "Yeah, sure, you can wear my stuff. Thanks for asking."

I ignore the clear sarcasm, dragging the jeans up my legs and over my hips. They're a couple inches too long, but either these don't fit Jason very well or his hips and mine are about the same size, because they fit just about perfectly on me. The shirt is a different story, because Jason's torso is definitely thicker than mine, and his shoulders are wider. It's loose, but not absurdly so, not the way Bruce's shirts hang on me. It'll do for now, until I get the chance to slip out and grab some supplies from my closest safe house.

"Feeling any better?" I ask, tugging the shirt into place and stretching real quick to make sure the jeans aren't going to fall off if I make any real movements. Like, say, if Jason _is_ feeling good enough to try for an escape attempt.

"Nausea's gone," he admits, "for now." He shifts, glances up as the cuffs clink against the headboard, and immediately winces and draws in a slow breath. "Head's trying to split apart."

"I'm listening. Where are your belts?" Better not to chance it.

His free hand flicks towards one of the lower drawers, and I follow the guidance down to a drawer filled with a few spare belts and a couple extra pairs of gloves. I snag one of the belts and shove the drawer closed with my foot, looping the leather through the loops of the jeans. It closes about midway, and judging by the wear I'd say my waist is just a bit smaller than his, because I hook it one hole further in than he does.

"Surprised you haven't hidden the guns yet," he points out. I cross back over to sit down on the bed, reaching out and putting the back of my hand to his forehead. His teeth bare for a second before he asks, "Not concerned I'm going to shoot you?"

"I remember you saying you didn't want me dead." He still feels like he's burning alive, and I make a bit of a face and pull my hand away. "Your temperature's pretty high. I'm going to grab the thermometer, and you're going to go along with it or I'm going to grab my phone and call Bruce right now. Got it?"

He glares at me, anger flickering in that weird cold spot in his gaze, and it actually makes me feel a little bit better to see it. "You're a manipulative son of a bitch, you know that?"

"You're a murderer," I counter sharply, "you know that?" The anger disappears, his gaze flattening out again, and I hold it until it unnerves me. Then I tear my eyes away and get up off the bed, something in me shaken and maybe even frightened. What is that _thing_ in the way he looks at me?

"Why don't you just call B now?" he asks, as I cross the room to the neat pile Alfred left on the kitchen table. Medicine — I grab some of that too — thermometers with disposable tips, tissues, etc. "You know you should, Dick. Big bad Red Hood all laid out with a virus, you're never going to get a better chance."

"I thought you might appreciate the chance to explain yourself on a clear head, if there's _anything_ you think you can say."

I head back over as he snorts, setting the medicine on the nightstand underneath the shadow of the bowl. "I'm _fine_. My head's clear, it's just trying to split open."

I sit back down, shoving the thermometer at his mouth. "Great, if you think you're fine we can talk and you can explain it to _me_. Now open your mouth and let me get a reading, Jay."

"Jackass," he hisses, but does part his mouth and let me slide the thermometer inside. We sit until it beeps the completion of the reading at us, and then I pull it back and turn it to read the displayed number. "Bad news?" he guesses dryly, probably reading whatever reactive expression slips onto my face.

"One-hundred and three point two. Jason, if it gets any higher than this—"

He cuts me off. "I know the numbers, Dick. You try and take me to a hospital and I will fight you every step of the way; I don't care how high it gets."

"I'd like to see you stop me." I know my voice is a snarl, and even with the haze in his eyes his lip curls and he meets my snarl with his own.

"I'd like to see _Dick Grayson_ drag the Red Hood into a hospital, fancy suit or not." It's not a flat out threat, but it's way more than just implied.

"You wouldn't," I try and believe, and the snarl fades back into that flat look, the one that makes me uncomfortable and unnerved, that just feels… _wrong_.

"You have no _idea_ what I'm capable of, Dick," he says quietly, with no hesitation or anything else disrupting his voice. "That's not a threat, it's just a fact."

I wish I could say he's lying, or make myself think absolutely anything but that he completely believes what he's saying, but I can't. I can't read a single tell in his expression, what little body language I can see, or his voice. I can't read _anything_ off of him. Not even the pain I _know_ he's in. I get more off of Bruce, _while_ he's in the suit, than what Jason's showing me right now.

I swallow, pulling my gaze away, and fiddle idly with the thermometer to keep my hands busy. "There's a clinic in Crime Alley—” I start, and Jason snorts.

"The Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic? Dr. Thompkins?" I look back over at him, and his eyes flick upwards in something like a roll. "I'm not an amnesiac, Dick. I remember her."

"Why do you keep saying my name?" I ask, narrowing my eyes. "If you're trying to use it as some kind of insult, that hasn't worked in a _really_ long time. _You_ should know that."

"You can read whatever you want into it," he says noncommittally. Of course he pauses, and then adds, "Dick."

I try and push away the irritation — he's being deliberately difficult, I swear — and tap the thermometer against my knee to keep from reaching over and doing something vaguely painful and equally irritating. Like flicking him.

"I'm taking you _somewhere_ if your temperature gets any higher,” I insist. “Will that work, or are you too paranoid for that too?” We’ve been going to Dr. Thompkins, Leslie, for the things too hard to patch up ourselves for _years_. Jason must have been by there a dozen times for various injuries, and whenever something is a little too serious to make do with Alfred’s stitching I end up there too. She doesn’t discriminate; _anyone_ is welcome in her clinic, and she’ll make sure they walk out better than they came in.

“It’s not paranoia if it’s justified.” His eyes flick closed, and he turns his head slightly into the pillow. “Hospitals get questionable about dead guys walking into their emergency rooms, and there’s no way I’m letting you in on the names I use for my false identities. Not interested in the hassle of making another one.” There’s a moment of silence, and I almost open my mouth to demand an actual answer to my question, before he concedes, “That’s fine. But _only_ if it’s dangerously high.”

His definition of 'dangerously high' and mine are probably different, but I don't bring that up. Let him think he's won, or at least is only making a small concession, if he really believes it. I'm not going to bring him back down to Earth — he's probably not thinking totally straight either, with that high of a fever — and tell him that my definition is if it hits one-hundred and four. Any higher than that and time becomes an issue, and I'm not waiting until he's high enough for it to really be dangerous and in need of an immediate fix. I'd rather have him already at the clinic if it gets that high.

"Good." I watch him for another second, where he _doesn't_ look up at me, and then ask, "Think you're up to food? Alfred brought by soup."

I expect something a little more immediate than the slow drag of his eyes opening — Alfred's cooking, most of it, is pretty legendary — like maybe an immediate demand of where the food is, or even some kind of reaction to Alfred's name, but I don't get any. Instead he looks over at the table, eyes narrowing a little bit like he's picking out exactly what each item over there is, then glances up at the packaged pills next to the bowl, and finally turns his gaze down to me.

"Might as well, while the nausea's gone." It's a really _dull_ response, but I swallow back the demands of why he's not giving me any more reaction than that — he's probably exhausted, and it's hard to summon real energy for excitement or anticipation when you're tired and sick — and get to my feet instead.

"I'll heat some up for you," I promise, heading across the room and towards the kitchen area.

"Going to uncuff me?" is the immediate counter. "There's no way in hell you're spoon-feeding me, just saying."

I don't even bother glancing back when I answer, "I'm sure you can manage just fine with one hand, Jason."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! XD Another chapter from Jason's PoV, of course. Hope you enjoy!

"So, let's _talk_."

I turn my eyes towards Dick, sitting at the edge of the bed, and push away the ever-present threads of anger to just watch him. It unnerves him when I just watch without forcing any kind of fake emotional reaction, or let the anger get a hold of me, so of course I've been using it as much as I can. It's a pretty effective tool to get him to back down, interestingly enough. Normally people back down underneath threats, or one of the dozen different ways to intimidate that Ra's taught me, but of course Dick's pretty much immune to all of that.

My dead-eyed stare, though? That works just fine.

I'm on my back, left arm hooked up above me and cuffed to the metal frame of my bed — should have taken off the ornate design of the headboard while I had the chance, too many places to tie someone up — and my right up on top of the blankets. My shoulders are too cool to be comfortable, but I'm not burrowing back beneath the blankets until I absolutely have to. It's not like my left arm is ever going to get warm anyway, not stretched up like that.

There's some dull part of me that says I should be afraid of that metal cuff, and how it feels against my skin, but it's barely even a subconscious thought. Nothing I can access, and nothing that can influence me. Just like every other emotion I don't have anymore, anger being the exception.

Dick is an _aggressively_ mothering bastard, and I really didn't know that before. I got sick once or twice as Robin, but he was really never around. He had Bludhaven to take care of, so the most I ever got while sick was him stopping by to check up on me and make sure I wasn't in the middle of dying. Now that he's got the time, and I'm the focus of his attention, I've decided I don't appreciate his style of caretaking. At least not while I'm only sort of his brother, and definitely his enemy.

He pushes _everything_ , argues every point, threatens to get me to do what he wants me to, and I just don't have the energy or the brain to combat that right now. Plus, I'd much rather deal with Dick's aggressive mothering, and maybe get a chance to pick the cuff and bail as soon as he's turned his back, than have to deal with Bruce instead.

The only thing he's going to offer me is a cell; at least Dick might be talked around with enough half-lies and twisted truths. All I need is to get out from under his eyes, and back out onto the streets. I have other safe houses, and other places I can rest until I get better and can get back to my job. Then it's just a case of dodging Bruce and Dick, and I am _really_ good at running.

"Are you going to explain yourself, Jason?" Dick asks, with a sharp edge that just _reeks_ of disapproval, anger, and a hint of pain.

I shift to be a little bit more comfortable, twisting my wrist against the metal of the cuff and pausing for a moment to swallow away the faintest hints of nausea. The soup was good, Alfred's cooking always is, but with food came that slow curl back in my stomach. Hopefully it goes away on its own, and I get to actually keep this meal. The pain, on the other hand, is pretty constant.

Every part of me aches like I just went through a seriously intensive workout, and my skin feels like the first few layers have been stripped away to leave sensitive nerves a little bit more exposed than they should be. My head is the worst of it, and there's the ache but there's also the jackhammer pulse that crowds my thoughts to the edge of my mind. That pain I've wrapped myself around, taken in, and brightened to become a focal point. Pain is good, it means I'm still _alive_ and that I'm not just a hollow shell, and this is just the cost of that reminder. I can handle it.

"How about you ask what you want to know, and maybe I answer?" I counter, and then watch Dick's eyes narrow and his closer hand — he's sitting at the edge of the bed, about level with my thighs, and turned in towards me with his left leg up on the bed — clench.

I actually didn't realize how close to the same build we are, not until he borrowed some of my clothes to get out of his Nightwing suit. I'm broader across the shoulders, and a few inches taller, and I knew that much, but I didn't realize how easily he'd fit into my clothing until he put it on. Really, the only things that prove it's not quite right are the slight looseness of the shirt, and the couple of extra inches at the bottom of the jeans, which can easily be explained away as room for boots, or just someone buying jeans that don't fit them right. His waist is a little thinner than mine too, but he also just, apparently, likes his belts a little tighter.

Makes sense I guess, considering how much he moves and how absurdly gravity defying most of it is.

"Alright," he agrees, sounding not at all happy with that particular decision. "How about you start by explaining why you shot Bruce, _twice_."

Well, that's easy. "To take him out of play," I answer, with a very small shrug that I almost instantly decide isn't a good idea. Moving, in general, is a bad idea. "He was interfering with my business, I made him back off."

"But how could you shoot him, Jason? He's practically our dad, he _raised_ us. How could you possibly do that to him?"

And here's where things get a little harder. I don't want Dick to know my soul's missing, not yet anyway. If he knows, it's going to turn this into something that it's _not_. He's going to assume that the lack of my soul makes me a monster, that it somehow changed everything about how I think, or screwed up my moral code, which it didn't. He's never going to accept that I'm doing all of this because it's the right thing to do, and because I don't have the guilt holding me back from being able to do as much as needs to be done. I can do everything they would shy away from.

But, I have to give him enough that he stops prying. If he has to see me as a monster, that's fine. It's not like I'll be able to feel any of the pain of him thinking of me like that. What I _don't_ want is for him to turn this around to be about me, and my issues, when it's about Gotham and her's. She's the one that needs help, not me.

"Things change," is what I settle on. Vague, but casual and to the point enough — and that's backed up by my lack of emotion behind it — that he'll take it as me being a little shut down, and ruthless. I can work with him thinking I'm ruthless. "And he raised _you_ , Dick, not me. I'd been self-sufficient for a long time."

Maybe not proud of what I had to do to be that way, but Crime Alley doesn't cut anyone slack. Not even kids. No, _especially_ not kids. After I was on my own, that was that. I did what I had to do to survive, and I might not be proud of all of it but even when I could feel it I didn't regret anything I did in there. It was what I had to do, it was all my choice in the end. Even the worst parts of it.

Dick looks _pissed_ at the first part of my answer, but then his face tightens at the second, and I can see him shut the anger away. "I met two girls outside," he says, _completely_ switching tracks on me. Two girls? That's… "They said you replaced another man that was here, one that used to take them to the roof?"

Anger stirs sharply at the memory of what I ran across on my path across the rooftops, of that _bastard_ and the two girls. Just _kids_. My jaw tightens — another bad idea, but I take the pain, _welcome_ it — and I meet Dick's gaze with narrowed eyes. "I don't play nice with rapist _scum_ , if that's what you're asking, Dick. He got what he deserved." I've only got a few things that will make me kill without considering the consequences or the circumstances, but that's one of them.

Rape is a _choice_ , it's a trauma that can't be compared to anything else, and there are _so_ many risks that go with it for the victim. As far as I'm concerned, there is absolutely _no_ justifiable reason for it. Absolutely nothing. There are even sometimes things that make murder acceptable — if it's accidental, for one — but rape? Especially when it's as clear-cut and defined as it was with those two girls and that older _bastard?_

Isabella and Janet, those are their names. I don't know what his was and I don't want to.

"Did you kill him?" Dick asks, sharply.

"Still trying for a confession?" As if he's ever actually going to put me in front of a court. I might know that I'd never unmask any of the Bats, but I made sure he believes that I will, if he pushes me. "If I did, it was cleaner than it should have been."

I've gotten better, since my first kill, about letting my anger take hold of me that suddenly, and make me kill without thinking about it for a second. But something like what I saw up there can still do it, and when I'm that furious I just react, I don't stop to think about what might be behind the scenes. Kids is what does it, pretty much exclusively.

That piece of shit deserved a slower death than what I gave him.

"Jesus, Jason…”

"Spare me your righteous speeches, Dick. You might not like it, but there are two girls out there who'd disagree, and I value their opinion of me a hell of a lot more than yours." Dick actually looks almost hurt for a second, and he recoils just a fraction of an inch.

"I'm your _brother_ ," he stresses, and I snort.

"You're also nearly as morally uptight as B. No killing, not ever, no matter what?" I bring a sneer to my face, watch his jaw tighten as his eyes narrow. Always ready to defend Bruce's precious morals, even if they don't work outside of the fantasy life that he's concocted for himself. " _Please_ , the world doesn't work that way and we both know it. All I'm doing is playing by the rules that exist, and not the bullshit ones that the two of you have made up in your heads. You can't just _scare_ everyone into not committing crimes again, Dick. Life doesn't _work_ like that."

"It's better than doing _nothing_ ," he tries to argue. "You don't get a free pass to murder people just because you don't agree with what they're doing, Jason. They always deserve a trial; justice, not vengeance."

Oh, I have spent _so_ much time compiling these arguments in my head. He's _wrong_. I push myself up, ignoring the way my arms don't want to support my weight and the way my head spins at the change in elevation. I am _not_ letting a virus stop me from making my point to Dick, no matter how much it hurts.

"Alright, _Dick_ , let's talk about justice. Let's talk about _trials_." He almost looks wary, even though my left arm is trapped behind my back and I'm obviously not in the best state to be taking him on anyway. "You notice a trend in how you keep seeing the _same_ people in the streets? Half the time the trials don't even convict them because — guess what, _genius?_ — evidence obtained by a vigilante isn't admissible in a courtroom. Neither is a confession obtained under duress; something like dangling them off a rooftop. Sound familiar?"

Dick knows that, of course he does. So does Bruce, even though he doesn't like to think about it. They _try_ and fake it, try and make sure that Gordon gets evidence he can actually use, but it doesn't usually work. I've seen that too.

"Then they've got the arrest on their record—"

" _Great_. So now you've terrorized them, _probably_ injured them and sent them to the hospital for treatment they can't afford to pay for, and put a black mark on their record that makes it _even_ harder for them to find any kind of real job. Of _course_ they go right back to crime, you moron." I snarl, facing down Dick's slightly widened eyes. "But you wouldn't know that because _neither_ of you know anything about how a normal life in poverty works. The people that you're stopping aren't going to change, they don't have any _choice_ but exactly what they're doing. They _never_ had a choice. How many people do you think actually _want_ to work illegal jobs, Dick? The pay is better but the risks, especially in _Gotham_ , aren't worth it."

"You don't understand, Jason." I want to hit him, I do, but the knowledge that I couldn't land a strike even if I tried holds me back. "We're protecting people, we're—”

"You're protecting the people you _want_ to," I correct, pulling against the cuff around my wrist. "You save the victim, and you never _once_ stop and think that maybe the person doing the crime has their own reasons for why. Don't _they_ deserve a chance too?" And whatever he might think, I'm _not_ talking about myself. I can't be saved, not unless someone hunts down wherever my soul ended up, and I'm not interested in asking for that. Not until my work in Gotham is done, and my business will run itself long after I'm gone.

"The criminals made their choice, they don't—”

"No, you idealistic _moron_ , they _didn't_." Dick is starting to look like he's not sure about his footing, or the ground he's standing on in this argument. _Good_. "Let me run you through a little scenario here, _Dick_. Let's say you live in Old Gotham, and you live paycheck to paycheck on a shit, minimum wage, _exhausting_ job just to make rent, have something like food, and keep the lights on and the power running for your family. Now let's say that job _fires_ you, with absolutely no reason. Someone will work for less under the table, they just don't like how you look, whatever. You've got _nothing_ saved, _nothing_ to sell, and you're good for maybe a week before what you've already paid for is gone. But hey, nowhere is looking, and the places that are have _so_ many applicants that the chance you're going to get it is _tiny_."

Dick's whole face is stiff, shoulders drawn defensively upwards, and I press my advantage. "Then someone makes you an offer. Come join this gang or that one, be an extra for some job, or come do heavy lifting for us down at the docks. Over double the paycheck you were getting before, they'll hire you on the spot, and they'll provide you with everything you need to work for them. They're not even going to force you to stay; they'll let you go whenever you want to. If you say no, you're taking the _miniscule_ chance that somewhere might hire you instead of a hundred other people, and that in the meantime you and your family don't starve, or get kicked out of your home and onto the streets. Give me _one_ other choice those people have, Dick. Just _one_."

He's still for a second, poised and studying me, and the second he opens his mouth I know it's going to be something totally useless. "There's plenty of places hiring in Gotham. Wayne Enterprises alone—”

"God," I spit, cutting him off, "you privileged _bastard_. Uptown jobs _don't hire_ people from Old Gotham, or from the lower classes of poverty. They hire middle-class people looking for a replacement job, or middle-class teenagers willing to work lower wages to start out in the world. Those people live closer, act happier towards customers, are considered more _reliable_ , and most of them have some kind of college education. It's called _privilege_ , Dick, and the people we're talking about don't _have_ it."

I shake my head — pain spikes sharply, but I swallow it away — and sneer at him. "You don't have a _clue_ what drives people to commit crimes, Dick. It's a _need_ , not a want. The ones who _do_ want it are the ones you're after, the ones who actually _enjoy_ the violence, but you never stop to figure out which one it is that you're hitting. You _jackass_."

"And you do?" he asks, and I can almost _see_ the relief that he has something he can turn back around on me. Not that it's going to work out for him.

"I don't kill people just for the hell of it, Dick. There are some crimes that I don't tolerate, but for most, _yes_. I kill in self-defense, and when I'm _sure_ that someone deserves it. The piece of shit that lived here before me deserved it, and Black Mask _deserved_ it, and you can argue that all you want but I'm _right_. You _know_ I am."

"If they deserved it let them go to a _trial_ , Jason. Put them away for life, or get them the death sentence. What _you're_ doing is _wrong_." The worst part is that he actually believes that rhetoric he's spouting. Dick really _believes_ that murder is never justified, and he really _believes_ that the justice system we have isn't screwed to hell, unbalanced, and unfair. Older than me or not, he's still a naive idiot.

"You've had _years_ to put Black Mask away for good, Dick. Funny how he got out on bail every time you put him in a cell, and then the charges got dropped within a couple of days. _Every_ time." He cringes just a little bit, but recovers after a second.

"You _can't_ take the law into your own hands, Jason. You can't play judge, jury, and executioner. _Everyone_ deserves a fair trial."

My jaw tightens, and I seize onto his word choice and narrow my eyes, spitting his own word back at him. " _Everyone_ , huh? Alright, _Dick_ , let's talk about the _Joker_." He flinches. "Has the _system_ done its job there? He's not dead, so that's a big fat _'no.'_ The system is so badly _broken_ it doesn't even work, Dick."

"The Joker is _insane_ ," Dick defends, still not quite backing down from my challenge. "He needs—”

I don't let him finish whatever bullshit he was going to try and tell me. "Yeah, he's _insane_. That doesn't mean he isn't also a vicious, mass-murdering, _psychopath_. After everything he's done, all the people he's put in hospitals, or _graveyards_ , and what he did to Barbara, to _me_ , you tell me right to my _face_ that you don't think he deserves to die, Dick. That you _really_ think that locking him back up in Arkham one more time, so he can break out and go right back to what he was doing, is helping anyone. Try and say it like you _believe_ it, _Dick_."

I don't have to wait to know that Dick isn't going to be able to, but I do anyway. I let him sit there and take my gaze, obviously struggling to find words. Finally, he jerks his eyes away from mine and looks away, hands clenched into tight fists. Everything about him screams of anger, and guilt, and he clearly really _wants_ to answer but he just can't make himself.

"Relax, Dick," I offer. "I don't need you to spit some empty words at me, we both know you won't have the conviction to really mean them anyway."

"Then what _do_ you need?" I pause, and he looks back at me. His eyes are narrowed, considering, and then he turns to really face me. " _You_ said that most people don't get into crime because they _want_ to, they do it because they _need_ to. You're a murderer, you made yourself a crime lord, and you've put yourself _right_ in the targets of me and Bruce. So what's your reason, Jason? Whatever else you are, you're not an idiot."

Dick always did pick out the meaning behind people's' choice of phrasing, and I guess I _did_ set myself up for that question. I have to give him an answer he'll accept, or he'll never drop it now that it's occurred to him. Dick's always been stubborn, too.

"It's not about me," I deflect, "it's about _Gotham_. Gotham needs someone who won't pull punches, and won't aim those punches in the wrong direction. You're never going to _stop_ crime, Dick. There's _always_ going to be someone who has to steal to survive, and someone willing to take the risks that come with dealing drugs, or weapons, or _anything_ else, but that doesn't mean that civilians have to get caught in the crossfire. It can be a _lot_ cleaner than what Black Mask ran."

For a good few seconds, Dick actually looks like he might be considering my words. Until he gives a tiny shake of his head and refocuses on me. "That doesn't tell me _your_ reason, Jason. You didn't just wake up one day and decide to abandon everything Bruce taught you. Why are you doing this? What _happened?_ "

Like a dog with a bone.

"I _died_ , Dick. Not a fun experience, believe it or not, and waking back up wasn't the best time in the world either. You know, I _almost_ thought that maybe my death might end all of it, that B might actually _finally_ realize that the Joker can't just be locked away, but I guess not. You've even got a new kid in the Robin suit." Dick stiffens, like he somehow thought I didn't know about _Tim_. "Keeping him out of Gotham until I'm gone, huh? Not willing to risk him up against the big bad Red Hood?"

"He's running the Teen Titans," Dick admits, sounding like I'm dragging the information out of him inch by inch, and I snort.

"You can bring him back to Gotham if you can bring yourself to; I don't hurt kids, Dick. The most he's going to get from me is an education on why the both of you are naive, idealistic, idiots." Or an efficient takedown, if they send him after me to actually fight. I don't hurt kids, but I'm not self-sacrificing enough to get taken out just because Dick and Bruce think they can exploit my morals. I won't break anything, but I'll make sure he can't follow me, and make sure he stays down when I put him there.

"There's not a chance in hell that I'd bring him near _you_ ," Dick snaps, without hesitation. "After what you've done—”

"Scared he might _learn_ something?" I counter.

His voice is nearly a snarl when he demands, "Just give me a _reason_ , Jason. _Why_ would you do this, _any_ of it?"

I don't hesitate. "I'm doing this, _Dick_ , because it needs to be done, and none of you have the stomach for it. _I_ do. None of you are going to change your minds, and if you're all going to cling blindly to your beliefs I can't stop you, but I don't have to fall in line and sing along to the tune with you. Gotham needs more than what you're giving her, and I'm going to fulfill that. You can spout speeches at me all you want, Dick, but you're not going to change my mind either."

"You're not giving me many options, Jason." His voice comes out tight, strained, _angry_ but with pain behind it. I don't remember what it was like to feel that much at once. "You know I _have_ to arrest you."

"Then do it," I challenge, letting the anger bleed back out of me to leave absolutely nothing behind. I can see his immediate, slight recoiling at the fresh blankness in my gaze. "But be prepared to have your whole world torn down around your ears, Dick. I won't go quietly."

He snaps to his feet like he can't stand another minute being still, his left hand raking back through his hair in what's easy to read as contained frustration. "You're such an unbelievable—” He cuts himself off, not looking at me, and then finally turns back around to face me again. "You know that little girl, outside," he pauses just long to make sure he has my attention before finishing, "she called you _wrong_."

I think he expects me to flinch, and maybe if I still had the ability to feel fear, or emotional pain, I would. Instead I just meet his gaze, keeping myself steady and flat under whatever he's trying to provoke me to do. He doesn't know that kids that small can just _feel_ that something isn't right about me, and that they tend to trust their instincts. Adults second-guess themselves, and talk themselves out of thinking of me as 'wrong' just because their first impression is that I'm somehow off. Kids don't.

The little girl outside, she and her sister know what I am. But Dick isn't going to take what she said that literally.

"Do you not even _care?_ " Dick demands, hands clenching at his sides.

"Should I?" He looks a step away from hitting me, and I flick my gaze up in what I've discovered most people consider an aborted roll of my eyes. "Don't try and lie to me, Dick. Whatever she called me, she also _likes_ me. I saved her, and I made sure no one was ever going to touch her again. I saved both of them."

"Don't you _dare_ call yourself a hero," he snarls at me, like it's personally offensive to him that I'd even _consider_ calling myself a hero when that's the title _he_ uses. Like somehow, if I use the word to describe myself, suddenly it'll be a tainted thing. Not that he has to worry about that.

"I don't have any illusions about what I am," I tell him flatly. "I'm doing this because I chose to, not because of some kind of twisted reasoning, Dick. Call me a villain if you want to; I _really_ don't care."

It's like he can't stand looking at me for another moment.

He whirls on his heel, stalking across the room and over to the kitchen table, where all the supplies from Alfred are sitting. He stands with his back to me, leaning over the table with both hands braced on it. It's easy to see the tension in his shoulders, the anger and pain that's clear in every inch of him. I should probably feel bad about that, but with the headache pounding away at my skull I have _officially_ used up all of my extra brainpower. I could use at least another few hours of sleep, and maybe some kind of magical medicine to at least make the pain a little less intense.

I can handle it, but it's draining what little energy I have pretty fast, and I can't afford that. Not if Dick is going to keep riding me about all of this, which I fully expect him to.

"You know," I start, conversationally, as I watch the line of his shoulders, "at some point you're going to have to uncuff me so I can take a piss."

" _Rot_ for all I care," he snaps over his shoulder, without looking at me. I didn't really intend to make him that angry, but I guess that will work. The angrier he is at me, the less likely he is to try and 'fix' me, and I really don't need him doing that. I've got no interest in being fixed, not in the slightest.

Even if anyone could find wherever my soul ended up, or _what_ it ended up in, they'd have to bring it back to me. After that, would I even want it? After everything I've done, or that's been done to me, would I even want it back? To be able to feel all the fear and pain and _guilt_ that I've probably racked up since my death? That might not be a good thing, regardless of the benefits. I don't know if I'd take it or not, if I was given the choice.

At least for now I wouldn't. I need my blankness to save Gotham, and if I get my soul back I won't be able to do what needs to be done.

"Uh-huh. Well, you can either uncuff me yourself or I'll pick the lock, but one of these two things is happening in about the next ten minutes. Your choice."

He stays facing away for another second, and then finally turns around and stalks back towards me. He ducks down to his discarded Nightwing costume — which he should probably put somewhere other than in the middle of my floor — and fishes into one of the folds to pull out a small key. Then he pauses, glances up at me, and reaches back into his suit.

I can’t help staring at the piece of frayed rope that he pulls out of the folds of the blue and black suit, or following it with my eyes until he tucks it into the right pocket of the borrowed jeans. It’s not greed, exactly, or jealousy, or _anything_ , but it’s just a _hunger_ that takes me over for a second. Like somehow if I get a hold of his soul, somehow that will fill the void where my own should be. Of course it won’t, but until the piece of rope is hidden again I can’t tear my eyes away from it, and even after it’s gone my gaze lingers on the pocket of the jeans for a moment.

“You even _try_ ,” Dick snarls, “and I’ll knock you unconscious and throw you in a cell; I don’t _care_ how sick you are.” Not surprising that he misread why I was looking, but I’d think that he’d know better than to believe I’d ever mess with someone else’s soul. Even if he doesn’t know exactly what happened to mine, I was always protective of it before I died, and he knew that.

“I wouldn’t do that, Dick.” He doesn’t need to know that there’s a hard wall in my mind that insists that I will _never_ touch another person’s soul for any reason but to hand it back to them. Not ever. I know what it’s like to be without one, I remember what it was like to wake up and have it be missing, and I _know_ the kind of pain that is. I still feel it in my bones, every day. “There are lines I don’t cross.”

He glares at me, but doesn’t immediately counter me with some kind of snapped, disbelieving comment, so I take his silence to mean that he at least sort of believes me. At least I’m sure he _wants_ to believe what I’m saying.

His knee braces on the bed beside me, and I stay still and non-threatening as he pushes my shoulder forward so he can reach back down behind me. His fingers slide down my arm, and there’s the tug of the cuff against my wrist before they click open, releasing me. I could have gotten it on my own, even with how terrible I feel, but if I don’t have to expend that kind of energy to focus, I’m not going to.

I roll my shoulder, twist my wrist to test and make sure that the night in the cuff didn’t fuck it up, and he stays at my side. A second later, I find out why when he asks, “Can you stand on your own?”

I could lie, tell him ‘definitely,’ but I’m really not that sure. It’s just pain and weakness, and I’m sure that even if I fall over to start with I can push myself hard enough to at least get to the bathroom on my own, but if I tell him that I’m going to look like an idiot if I _do_ fall over. I’m not really interested in asking for his help, but it would probably make things a whole lot easier. No, it would _definitely_ make things a whole lot easier.

“Maybe,” I settle on answering, drawing my legs in towards myself as he gets to his feet. It sucks to push the blankets away, and a sharp shudder starts low in my back and claws its way up my spine, forcing me to tremble underneath it. I pull in a shallow breath, and then there’s a hand in my face. I look up to meet Dick’s gaze.

“Yeah, _sure_ you can. Come on.” At least he didn’t make me ask, I guess. Though I think I might have just sucked it up and suffered the walk instead of actually asking for his help.

I take his hand, and I half expect him to just yank me up with no concern for the weakness in my muscles, or the nausea, but luckily — even though he's obviously pissed at me — he thinks it through a little more than that. Whatever else I might call him, or believe, Dick's never been petty. He can be pretty nasty sometimes, when his patience runs thin or he's avoiding discussing something — he tends to verbally go for the throat when people press him for answers he doesn't want to give — but he's never petty about it. Yanking me up would be petty, and it would only make what he's doing harder anyway.

He braces my arm around his shoulders, taking most of my weight before I can even think to try supporting myself, which leaves me with nothing to do but take the help and just try not to trip over my own feet.

If I didn't know better I'd say that there was something actively trying to split my skull open, and now that I am standing I know that there's no way I could have done it on my own. At least, not with any real success. My legs barely want to hold even the small amount of weight I've got on them, and even the touch of Dick's shirt along my arm feels rough and uncomfortable. There's no way I could have managed all of my own weight, gotten all the way across the room, and then done anything but collapsed on the middle of the bathroom floor and shivered.

Dick takes it slow, catering to my inability to do much more than shuffle along, and his grip is steady and unyielding despite how much of my weight is on him. I'm not a light guy, too much muscle for that, but I know how strong Dick is. The fact he can take almost all of my weight isn't any kind of a shock; I've seen him support Bruce inside his suit, and that's a lot more weight than me mostly naked.

I wonder if Dick remembers the scars I used to have well enough to know I don't have them anymore. The Lazarus Pit pretty much wiped me clean, and I've picked up some more since then — Talia and Ra's don't play nice — but it's still pretty obvious that something happened to my old scars to anyone who knew me before. Dick hasn't seen me in a while, and we weren't the closest even when I was Robin, so it's possible he didn't notice that my scars are different. If he did, I suppose that will get him thinking about how I came back to life.

That one's still a mystery to me.

My dip in the Lazarus Pit might have restored my mind, and sewn closed the raw wound of the loss of my soul, but it didn't bring me back to life. I was officially, unarguably, _dead_ , and something brought me back to life still buried in my coffin. No one stepped forward to claim that they were the ones who did it, and if someone _had_ purposely brought me back to life they probably would have actually done something with it. Why would anyone bring me back and then leave me to wander Gotham's streets?

The best I can guess is that it's just an accident of the universe. Something happened, _somewhere_ , and I got brought back to life as an accident. Stranger things have happened.

Dick eases me inside the bathroom, pulling me over towards the toilet. It’s kind of an impressive balancing act he does, as he lifts a leg to flick the toilet cover up and keeps me on my feet at the same time. I’m self aware enough to push my boxers down before he sets me down on the seat, and then steps back and turns away. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not like embarrassment is something that registers to me anymore. I take care of business, flush, and manage to get halfway back up before he’s turned around and helping me stand. The tug of his hand to pull the boxers up is quick, professional, and it stings a little against my sensitized skin but I don’t bring it up.

He leans me against the counter where the sink is built in, and then disconnects himself from underneath my arm. I let my eyes close, just breathing as I somewhat shakily wash and dry my hands by touch, and I can hear his footsteps but I don't track them the way I probably should. I don't have the attention to spare. After some period of time that I also don't track, one of his hands slides up my spine in a comforting stroke, slipping fingers up through my hair, as he presses up against my side. The back of his other hand taps against the arm I've got braced against the counter, and I manage to pry my eyes open.

"Come on, Jay. Two of these," he shakes a small pill bottle, "and a spoonful of this." 'This' is a bottle mostly filled with a dark purple-ish liquid. "If you tell me where you keep painkillers, I can grab some of those."

Nice offer. "Only have shots," I manage to answer. "Shouldn't mix them." Pain is such a constant for me that I just learned to live with it. I don't bother taking anything anymore, not unless it's a serious injury and I need to be numb enough to deal with it. Anything else I can handle. This isn't serious enough to pull those out, and it's a bad idea to mix any kind of medications like that without knowing more about it.

"You don't have normal painkillers?" Dick asks, sounding totally disbelieving.

"Wouldn't matter." And it would be _so_ easy to get addicted to them. Just one or two, to take the edge off the constant ache of pain, but then my resistance would build and I'd be taking more and more. I won't risk that.

I shift my weight to reach for the pills he's holding out, and my legs buckle underneath me. It's only Dick's startled, automatic reflexes that keep me from falling, both of his arms wrapping around my waist to hold me up. He's cool against my skin, and my eyes slide shut again as I let myself lean back into him.

"Woah! Jesus, _Jason_." I'm sort of conscious for him shifting us both down to the ground, and leaning my back up against the counter, but I don't open my eyes. "Alright, I'm taking you to the clinic. Stay _right_ here, Jay." He moves away from me, the pad of footsteps rushing out of the tiled bathroom.

I don't know where he thinks I'm going to go, honestly. It's not like I could stand on my own, even if I tried to. _Going_ somewhere? Yeah, not happening.

At some point he comes back, and there's the touch of hands to my shoulder, through the barrier of a reinforced glove; and to my forehead, with bare skin. I drag my eyes open, turning my head to look over, and the blue and black of the Nightwing costume meets my gaze. I blink, slowly, and I can see his lips moving but I'm not sure that he's actually talking to me. If he is, it's drowned out by the pounding in my skull and the haze that's creeping over the world.

The hand at my shoulder squeezes down, the other one hooks underneath my arm and around my waist — I think he looks unhappy — and then the world is tilting, blood rushing past my ears. There's a dizzying spin of white, blue, and then everything is black.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! So, another chapter for this. XD Nothing specific to note this time around; enjoy!

Jason is _heavy_.

I mean, I knew that, of course I knew that, but I hadn't really grasped the core concept until now. Not until I was faced with carrying him out of the bathroom as complete dead weight, with not even a little bit of help. He's not as heavy as Bruce is, but he's solid muscle all the way through and that does _not_ equal out to any kind of lightness. He's also irritatingly tall, and thick, and I am not the right kind of build to be carrying him around.

I get him back to the bed, but it's not easy. So I spend about fifteen seconds debating getting him to Dr. Thompkin's clinic before I grab my phone and call Alfred. There is no way in _hell_ that I'm getting Jason halfway across town, while he's unconscious, with only my own strength and a grapnel. That's just not going to happen. I could probably do it if I _had_ to, but that is a whole lot of effort and a lot of exhaustion that I can just bypass without even trying.

Alfred answers, and without so much as a hello asks, _"Master Richard, is your 'friend' alright?"_

Trust Alfred to know exactly why I'm calling. "No," I answer, scrubbing my still bare hand over my eyes. "Alfred, I need the car, please. I don't have any other way to get him across town, and I'm taking him to Dr. Thompkin's clinic."

_"No offense intended, master Richard, but are you sure that's a wise idea? I doubt he'll appreciate it, and whatever anonymity you are trying to protect, that **will** destroy it."_

"I really don't _care_ if he likes it or not," I snap. "Alfred, he _passed out_ on me, his temperature's through the roof, and he was barely even focusing when I tried to get him to talk to me. He can curse me out if he wants to, and I will tie him down if I have to, but I'm taking him to that damn clinic."

_"Language,"_ Alfred clicks, disapprovingly. _"Very well, I'll bring the car to you. I **will** be accompanying you, Master Richard. Can you get him downstairs by yourself?"_

I take a look at Jason, collapsed on the bed, and then grit my teeth and answer, "Yeah. I can do that. See you downstairs, Alfred." I let him hang up first, and then tuck my phone away. Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.

I tug my other glove on first — I left it off when I got dressed back up in the Nightwing suit so I could still feel how hot Jason's skin was — and pull out a change of clothes from his dresser. The loosest ones I can find; I doubt anything tight-fitting will be comfortable for him right now. In fact, I'm really sure that anything tight-fitting will be absolute hell; I've been through my fair share of sickness, the flu included. At least a couple times, anyway. I pull the clothes over to him, and get to work.

It is _very_ difficult to dress an unconscious person. Especially when that unconscious person is solid muscle and weighs enough to match it. I manage it, but half of that is practice, and the other half is sheer stubbornness. I also smack my face into his elbow once, and it hurts, but I'm fairly sure it's not going to bruise. It's not like there's any real force behind the smack, and I've taken worse without bruising. It still hurts though.

I leave all of Jason's gear behind, since I've got him dressed in civilian clothes, and pretty haphazardly lace his boots onto his feet. Sick or not, Gotham's streets — especially where we're going — is no place to be barefoot. They can come back off when we reach the clinic, but until then I'm keeping them firmly on his feet. Streets aren't kind to bare feet, and I've seen enough bits of shattered glass around Dr. Thompkin's clinic to know that even though it's a sanctuary, it still plays by the same rules as every other building in Crime Alley. Mainly, that the neighborhood is bad and should be approached with caution.

Actually picking him up is kind of a questionable thing. Yeah, Jason is pretty definitely heavy, and I might be at the stronger end of the scale but Jason is, conversely, also at the heavier end, and bigger than I'm used to carrying. He's pretty much like Bruce, minus about a hundred times the wounded pride and the surly attitude from needing help at all. Then again, Jason is _unconscious_ , and that definitely doesn't exactly lead to being able to be pissed at the person carrying you. If he was awake, I'm sure it would be a different story.

I gather him up into my arms, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees, and slowly head for the door. Which is another problem. Somehow, I manage to prop his shoulders against the wall next to the door and then get it open far enough to hook it with my foot, but I nearly drop him a couple of times.

How the hell can I carry someone over one shoulder, across rooftops, with no problem, but I can barely get out the door with him securely in both arms? What kind of sense does this make, honestly? I'm really better than this, I swear.

I'm not alone when I head down the corridor and to the elevator — there is no way in hell I'm braving the stairs with neither of my arms available to catch me if he jolts awake, I misjudge a step, or someone objects to me carrying Jason out of here as Nightwing — and I manage to check the call button with his foot as I try to ignore the pairs of eyes I can see peeking around the corners of the walls. Including the eyes of the two little girls from earlier. They know that Jason was sick, I told them. It's not like he's bruising anywhere — at least the shirt covers his side, or I'd probably be answering some questions about the clearly broken rib — or obviously bloody, so they shouldn't be staring at me like I knocked him out and picked him up to carry him to a cell.

I'm not that bad, am I? I mean, I am a _hero_. Jason might save some people, sometimes, but he's not a hero. Not even a little bit. I won't let him use that word, and I won't let anyone else use it either.

He _was_ a hero, as Robin, but whatever he's come back as is _not_ the same. He's a killer, a murderer, and what he's doing is _wrong_. Even if the way he explained it… Well, it doesn't matter if it made sense, it's still wrong. I don't have to stop and think about it to know that killing people, and taking over a crime organization, is _bad_. It doesn't matter how much of what he said made sense. I shouldn't even be considering it. Just because I couldn't find the words to tell him he was wrong doesn't mean he was right. I refuse to believe that.

It's kind of a relief to slip inside the elevator when it gets there, and use Jason's foot — again — to hit the 'close doors' button, and then the one for the ground floor. I just really hope that there's no one down there. This could be awkward to explain, especially if the little girls spread the story about Jason. Especially if the people here actually _like_ Jason. I really don't want to have to fight a bunch of civilians trying to protect my murderer of a brother, and it might be a serious blow to my reputation if I just run away from them. I will, if it comes down to that, but I don't want to.

So, of course, that's exactly what I face when the doors open at the bottom. There are four middle-aged men — and one very angry looking woman — standing very deliberately between me and the front door, and they might not be the most fit bunch, but I can tell at least two have some kind of strength. They do look a little out of breath, like they just booked it down the stairs to be here before me, and at least none of them are carrying anything that looks like a weapon.

I step out of the elevator, pausing, and glance to the sides. There are a few more faces at the bottom of the stairwell, but none look eager to get in my way.

"I'd really like to not do this," I point out, with a small, friendly smile.

"Great," the woman — five-foot-seven, on the thinner end, long blonde hair in a ponytail, narrowed green eyes — says, menace in every inch of her body language. "Then take Jay back upstairs this _instant_."

How the hell did Jason get a whole building loyal to him? Not just superficially loyal, but actually willing to defend him when he's not there to tell them to? He's unnerving, he's ruthless, he's a _murderer_. That doesn't translate out to loyalty in my book. Saving the girls can't have been enough, even though it would have gotten him some major points. What else did he do here?

"All I'm trying to do is help him," I explain, wishing I had my hands free so I could showcase that I don't mean any of them any harm. "He's sick, I'm taking him to get treated."

One of the men — six feet or so, hints of muscle, blue eyes, brown hair — scowls and takes half a step forward. "Jay doesn't like hospitals. You need to leave, Nightwing, we'll make sure he's alright."

"Not a hospital, the clinic down in Crime Alley. Totally free, no documentation needed." I shift, angling Jason's head — resting against my shoulder — towards them. "Look, his temperature's through the roof, and he was barely focusing when I tried to talk to him. I swear, all I'm doing is making sure he's alright." I turn a little more obviously, and tilt my head down towards his. "Feel for yourself if you want."

After a few shared glances, by apparent group consensus, the woman stalks towards me. I resist the urge to back off; angry mothers are about the scariest thing in the world and she looks _very_ unhappy with me. She probably can't hurt me that badly, but it's kind of an ingrained reaction, and I really don't want to have to dodge anything she might throw at me. Fists included.

Her hand touches Jason's forehead — he doesn't even twitch, which reinforces to me that this unconsciousness is _bad_ — firmly sliding to cup her palm over it. She glances up at me, mouth settling into a tight line that looks more worried than anything. I shift his weight in my arms, and glance past all of them to confirm that there's a car waiting out at the curb. One of the much more subtle ones that we keep for times like this.

"He _passed out_ on me," I stress, quietly. "If you know who he is you know that means this is serious. I have to take him somewhere."

Her hand pulls away, and she looks up at me and demands, louder than my voice, "And are you going to bring him _back_ once he's seen to, or take him to a cell?" Her tone definitely implies that if I answer anything but exactly what she wants, there's going to be trouble. Unfortunately, her eyes are also narrowed and studying me for any kind of deception. I'm sure I _could_ lie well enough to fool her, but I really just want to get past the group of them and to the car.

"I don't know yet," I answer honestly. "It depends what kind of answers he has for my questions, and I can't ask those until he's conscious again." I know he's killed, I know he's done enough to deserve a cell, but can I put him there?

If this really is Jason, and he really has done all of these terrible things entirely of his own free will, then he deserves to be imprisoned. But the real questions are: is there actually enough evidence to keep him in one, can I stomach doing that to him, and if Bruce and I unmask him, will he turn his information on us? Jason could do a _lot_ of damage to us, including announcing the whole family's identities and watching Gotham's villains hunt us down. I can't say for sure that he was bluffing, and that makes it a _very_ dangerous thing to consider doing.

The woman stares at me for a long few moments, hands at her sides but clenched into loose fists, and then finally nods. "I expect to see him back here, Nightwing. Jay is a _good_ kid, he's done a _lot_ to help around here."

I resist stopping to ask _what_ Jason's done, why they're willing to protect him, why she so _firmly_ believes that he's good even knowing who he is. "Understood," I say instead, _also_ resisting the urge to point out that Jason is at least…

Eighteen. Jesus, Jason is barely eighteen. He _is_ just a kid. The muscle, the slight shadow of stubble across his jaw, and whatever it is about his eyes makes him look older, and he's got skills and strategy way beyond eighteen. I saw him as Red Hood first; I _completely_ forgot that he was that young.

God, how could I ever put him in a cell?

The woman steps aside, and it's obviously reluctant but the men do as well, clearing the way to the door. I head for it without hesitation — partly because I'm concerned that if I don't, they'll change their minds — and turn to press the door open with my shoulder, carefully maneuvering Jason through it without hitting anything of his on the frame or the glass itself. Alfred doesn't get out of the car, which is a good thing considering how unfriendly this whole building is, and that leaves me to stride over to the back passenger-side door and cautiously balance Jason's weight so I can open it. This one is easier than the apartment door, but leaning inside to get Jason laid across the back seat — he's _way_ too long for it — is a serious hassle.

"Everything alright, Master Richard?" Alfred asks, as I struggle to get Jason bent far enough inside that I can close the door, without unbalancing him so he'll fall off at the first stop.

"He's heavy, too tall, and the whole apartment building is treating me like _I'm_ the criminal for taking him to get treated," I complain, finally giving up on any kind of real balance. I climb inside the back with him, hauling Jason up to something like sitting so I can click a seatbelt down over his chest. I shut the door behind me, and resign myself to spending the entire trip with my arm across Jason to hold him up and stop him from strangling himself against the seatbelt with his own weight.

Alfred pulls away from the curb, and I take in a deep breath as I scrub my free hand over my face. The other one I carefully press across his chest, with enough pressure to hold him up but not enough to impede his ability to breathe. Tempting as that might be right now, after facing off with Jason's neighbours and having to struggle with how irritatingly heavy he is as dead weight. I only _kind_ of want to hurt him.

"Alfred, how does someone like him make friends willing to face down a vigilante, when they _know_ who he is?"

Alfred's gaze briefly meets mine in the rear view mirror, mouth a displeased line — not at me, thank god — and then he gives a sigh just loud enough for me to hear. "Sometimes, Master Richard, it's not what we know people have done, but what they've done for _us_."

Which I totally understand — if people judged me by some of the things I've done when I nearly lost control… — but for a _murderer?_ For a ruthless crime lord that just took over a good chunk of crime in Gotham? What trumps those kinds of acts?

"But he's _Red Hood_." Alfred's gaze flicks back to me. "He's a killer, and a crime lord, and just this morning he _murdered_ Black Mask."

Alfred's mouth tilts in the tiniest smile, one eyebrow arching. "Have _you_ put him in a cell yet?" I sputter a little bit, sitting back underneath the verbal equivalent of a disarming. "Criminal or not, Jason is your brother. To them, criminal or not, he's something else entirely. I doubt you know the whole story, Master Richard, and if you were truly convinced that Jason was as bad as the image you've built up of Red Hood, we wouldn't be here."

I look over at Jason, flexing my fingers in his shirt and feeling the unnatural heat of his skin through the fabric. Alfred's right, of course. By all rights I should have taken Jason in to Bruce the second I found him, but he's _Jason_. I remember what he used to be like, and I remember what he was like as a kid; how bright and _determined_ , even underneath his eternal temper. I don't _want_ this change to be real; I want there to be some excuse for what he's done and why he's like this.

"Alright, I get it."

I can feel the car turn, and tighten my grip for a second so Jason doesn't slide to the side.

"You are not the only one who prays that something is influencing him," Alfred says softly, "but you must be prepared, in case Red Hood really is what has become of Jason."

My jaw clenches down before I can stop the reaction, and then I shake my head. "I can try, Alfred. More than that…” What will I even _do?_ If Jason really has become a murderer of his own free will, the only option is to imprison him. If he's not bluffing, that means it has to be privately, and hidden somewhere that he doesn't have anyone to tell our secrets to. "I don't know."

I rake my free hand up through my hair, leaning back against the seat and tilting my head back. Jason's heartbeat is strong and steady underneath my touch, and I can feel the rise and fall of his chest in equally steady inhalations, so at least that's something. At least he's not obviously dying, not yet and not even if I can see the sweat along his neck and dampening his hair. He could still be just fine, and then I really _will_ have to face the idea of putting my younger brother in jail, or _Arkham_. Right next to the Joker; _God_.

"Did you remember how young he is?" I ask Alfred, and I can see his mouth tighten again.

"Yes," is all he offers, and he keeps his eyes trained forward at the road.

"I didn't." I close my eyes, raising my chin so even if I open them again all I'll have to see is the ceiling. I tighten my grip on my own hair and shake my head. "Eighteen; _jesus_. He doesn't look it, right? I'm not just totally blind?"

Alfred is silent for a long few moments, through another turn of the car, and then says, "He _does_ look young, but not that young. He appears more around your age, Master Richard, somewhere in his young twenties. The difference from how we remember him is drastic; not immediately recalling his age is no failing of yours."

I open my eyes, and turn my head to study Jason. I can feel the corded muscle underneath my arm, and see it through the curve of his neck and his mostly bare arm. I can see the edges of a scar or two where they just barely peek past the edge of the normal t-shirt, but none of them are the ones I remember. I don't _exactly_ remember every mark that was carved into Jason's skin when I knew him — I didn't see him shirtless enough for that — but I remember some of them. Not a single one that I remember is still on his skin, and all the others are new. They look almost exclusively like knife wounds.

What _happened?_

Jason was _dead_. I touched his corpse, I saw his container broken nearly in half — my hand drops from my hair down to my right thigh and the shape of my own container through the barrier of my suit, automatically — and I helped Bruce get him home. I watched while they buried his coffin. What brought him back? How did none of us _notice?_ How recently, what method, what _miracle?_

Why didn't he come home?

Jason has a level of combat skill miles above what I remember, and he's picked up new skills somewhere too. Marksmanship, the training to fight with a knife — _seamlessly_ integrated into his hand-to-hand — and a tolerance for pain that's higher than mine by a pretty large margin, and that's just what got showcased in the fight I had with him. Plus everything he must know to think he can run a criminal organization as large as Black Mask's, and the kind of strategy it would have taken to put this entire thing into play. You don't just _magically_ know things like that; skills take time to learn.

So if he's been alive long enough to learn all of this, then why didn't he come home? Why has he set himself up as our enemy? It doesn't make sense with what I remember of Jason's convictions, and he was always very vocal about them. Even what he said to me, just hours ago, was missing anything personal. He never brought up _why_ he's doing any of this, just said it had to be done.

Is he angry with Bruce and me? Did he decide he doesn't want to be associated with us? Is this our fault? Or was he not _able_ to come back? Was he kept captive somewhere, turned against us and then trained to have the skill to be able to beat us at our own game? Is he a clone with implanted memories, or was it magic that brought him back? Science?

There's so much about this that doesn't make any sense, and I can't get any answers until he's conscious again. Ideally, conscious and actually aware, though him being hazy might make it easier to get straight answers out of him.

"Alfred," I start, keeping my voice pitched low and my gaze on Jason, "is there any other option but locking him away? _Anything?_ "

"I can't answer that, Master Richard. We don't know what happened to Jason while he was," _dead_ , "away from us. There may be other possibilities, but without knowing why he's become what he has, and if it was his _choice_ , it's impossible to say. Wait until we have answers, no matter what they are."

I nod, even though I've got no idea if he's looking at me. "Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that."

Being still isn't in my blood. I'm not like Tim, who can curl up in a corner of a couch with a book, files, or his laptop and spend long enough there that I start to question if he ever actually moves; or Bruce, who can spend hours sitting in front of his computer with no movement but the shift of his mouse to click on files or photos. I have to be able to _move_ , to fight, to run, to do _something_. I can stay still for a little while, or if I’m _really_ motivated, but most of the time it’s way more trouble than it’s worth.

Waiting, being _stuck_ sitting around for something completely beyond my control, is just about the worst thing that can happen. I despise having to just sit still with nothing to occupy my time. Normally I fix that by going out on patrols, or running exercise routines, or something along those lines, but I can’t do that in this case. I can’t leave Jason alone in the clinic. Partly for his safety, sure, but also partly for Dr. Thompkins’ safety. I don’t think Jason would hurt her, but if he tries to leave and she gets in his way he might do it no matter what he thinks of her or wouldn’t normally do. I can’t take that chance.

I have to stay with Jason, and I have to make sure that no one else gets hurt because of him, or by his hand. I _have_ to make sure that nothing else gets added onto the tally of sins I’m already going to have to judge him for.

“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” I ask Alfred, turning my head forward to meet his eyes in the rear view mirror. “Hiding this from Bruce?”

His fingers tap against the wheel, and then he carefully says, “I understand why you’ve chosen to wait before informing him, but that does not mean I approve. Master Bruce deserves to know, and I think you’re aware of that. Jason is as much his son as he is your brother, Master Richard, and he will be furious with you for keeping this a secret. You know that too.”

Trust Alfred to tell it like it is, and of course he’s _right_. I shouldn’t be keeping this from Bruce; secrets might run in the family but this is a _big_ one that shouldn’t be kept. Maybe Tim shouldn’t know yet, or Barbara, but at the _least_ Bruce should know who the Red Hood is. I can talk him down from a cell, I can make sure that Bruce at least gives us the chance to figure out if Jason is actually doing this of his own free will. Together, as _family_ , we can decide exactly what to do with him.

“You’re right.” Alfred makes a noise that roughly translates out to, ‘of course I am,' and arches an eyebrow. “As soon as he’s with Dr. Thompkins, I’ll call Bruce and tell him. He deserves that, you’re right.”

Alfred gives a very small nod of approval, and then returns his attention completely to the road. I take a glance out past him, squinting to see past the tinted windows and try to recognize where we are. In the Crime Alley neighborhood is the answer, and maybe two or three minutes from the clinic. I stifle a grimace at the thought of having to carry Jason out of the car and in there, hopefully without anyone actually seeing us.

I don’t think Jason would be foolish enough to show his identity — obviously his apartment building knows, at least some of them, but that might have been unavoidable — and obviously none of the family knew who he was, so it shouldn’t be a problem if I’m seen carrying him. But, if it _is_ , if by some _random_ chance one of the people passing by knows his face, and spreads the word that the Red Hood is down and in the custody of the Bats, things could get bloody _really_ fast. Jason just took over for Black Mask this morning, things haven’t had time to settle yet and if I arrest him now, or someone _thinks_ I’m arresting him, that entire organization could turn on itself. A lot of people will get hurt.

It might be different if Jason had already taken control over everything, and had a solid grip on it. Then, a few days or weeks in a prison probably wouldn’t do much — and I have to think, if Jason is this skilled at so many other things, a jail break wouldn’t be much of a problem for him — and they would continue with business while they waited for him to get out. But things are already shaky, and if he gets imprisoned the same day as Black Mask is killed? One of the others — Penguin is my first thought — might try for a grab of power, or another gang might see if they can take over while Red Hood is gone, and there will be an instant power struggle.

Jason has to have _someone_ running the organization in his place. At least superficially. Otherwise he would never have taken the chance of killing Black Mask when he couldn’t immediately take his place. Can that person hold onto the power if Red Hood’s arrest is public?

And that loops me back around to the question of if I can actually arrest Jason without him turning the information he knows on us. _Damn it_.

Alfred pulls to a stop, and I glance outside to make sure we’re in the right place before moving to unbuckle the seat belt holding Jason in. “Thanks, Alfred. I’ll call Bruce as soon as she’s seen Jason, promise.”

He doesn’t answer me, which is probably for the best since I’m kind of preoccupied with pushing the door on my side open and hauling Jason across the seats. I carefully get him into my arms, lift him out of the car with a little bit of a struggle — he’s a little big to get out of a car door without his help — and then check the door closed with my hip. Alfred waits a moment, long enough for me to turn around and start for the clinic’s door, before pulling away. Luckily no one’s on the street, but I angle Jason’s head into my chest anyway, just in case.

_Bless_ whoever invented push bars on doors, seriously, because I don’t know if I could have handled getting Jason through the clinic doors without smacking his legs into something, or nearly dropping him again. The clinic is _also_ empty, though there are a few wrappers of something on the ground, beneath one of the waiting chairs, that makes me think it hasn’t been empty that long. Dr. Thompkins keeps her clinic in good condition, always. She cleans her actual tools first, and the rooms where she does her examinations or surgery, but after that she always comes out here and cleans up the waiting area too.

When you have so many people bleed on it, it’s probably a good habit to get into.

I don’t call out, but I make sure that my footsteps are audible as I walk further into the small room. Sure enough, since she’s got near supernatural senses about people coming into her kingdom, she appears through a door to the left of the desk set up at the end of the waiting room. She looks tired, but her eyes widen a bit at the sight of me and, I’d guess, the man in my arms. Her long black hair is pinned back into a messy ponytail/bun hybrid, her glasses are a little crooked, and there’s a bit of dried blood spotted along her left sleeve, but she manages to still look pretty well put together.

“Nightwing!” She moves towards me, quickly, and I meet her as far forward as I can. “There’s no one else here,” she tells me, gaze fixed down at Jason, flicking along him in a clearly studying way before rising to his face. “What happened? Who—” she cuts off with her hand halfway to his forehead as I roll my shoulder to move his head so she can see it. The sharp flash of surprise, and then realization, in her eyes is fast, and then she looks up at me. “Is this _Jason?_ ”

Of course Dr. Thompkins knows who we are, even if she’ll pretend to any and everyone that it isn’t true. She’s known Bruce for years, he _funds_ this clinic, and she’s seen all of us bloody and broken enough times that even without that advantage, she’d know. I didn’t expect her to pick him out quite so fast, but I should have known better. Jason grew up in this neighborhood, she knew him long before he ever become Robin. Of course she’d recognize him, even with the few extra years.

“Yeah,” I confirm. “I don’t know how yet, but he’s sick. I think just the flu, but his temperature’s pretty high and he passed out, I didn’t want to risk anything.” Her eyes are worried, and she beckons me towards the door as she reverses direction. I don’t follow her just yet; there’s one other thing she needs to know before she commits to helping him. “Dr. Thompkins.” She stops, turns, and I bite back a wince. “He’s also the Red Hood.”

I can see her stiffen a moment, shock and something like disbelief in her eyes, before a mask of steely professionalism slides over her expression. “I don’t discriminate and you _know_ that, young man. Bring him in, _now_.”

This time I follow her — she holds the door open for me — and without guidance I move down the corridor to the first door on the left, the examination room. I’ve been here enough to know the floor plan. The door’s partially open, and I nudge it the rest of the way with one foot before angling myself the right direction to slip inside. She’s at my back, I can hear her, as I carefully lay Jason down on the cushioned table. He’s almost too tall, but I manage to make it work. Barely.

She moves around me, and as soon as I have him set down I step back and up against the wall to be out of her way. Jason’s still breathing steadily at least, but he’s also very still apart from that, and that worries me. Jason never had the same abhorrence of being still as I do, but he was never very good at it. He was always a light sleeper, and a fidgety one. I’d find him, some mornings, curled completely beneath the blankets. Unless he was utterly exhausted, he always shifted and twitched in his sleep.

I watch her take his temperature, watch her jaw clench for just a moment as she reads the number. “It was one-hundred and three when I took it earlier today,” I tell her, “but that was before at least seven hours of sleep, and he was just starting to show symptoms as far as I’m aware.” She starts moving again, and partially for something to do I lean my head back against the wall and try to remember exactly what Jason’s been like since I found him.

“He threw up, just once. He’s been sweating, shaking, had trouble standing on his own or moving. Muscle weakness, I’d guess. He said his skull was trying to split apart, but for a while he was just fine talking to me. At least it seemed like it.” I shove out a breath and raise my hands to scrub over my face. “I don’t know if that’s because it wasn’t serious or just because he could take the pain. I don’t know where he picked this up, or when he started actually feeling symptoms. When I got him up, maybe an hour ago, he was alright until I got him into the bathroom. I left him alone for a minute, just to grab some medicine, and when I came back he collapsed on me, wasn’t responding to my questions. Figured bringing him in was safest.”

“Good call,” she answers absently. “His temperature’s dangerously high, but at least he’s still responding to stimuli. I can get him through the worst of it.” She glances around, over at me, and then rakes her gaze down him once before asking, “Where’s his container?”

“I—” I pause, trying to remember seeing Jason touch _anything_ like it was important, or treat anything with special care… No, nothing. He watched me pretty closely when I moved mine from my suit to the pocket of the borrowed jeans, but I don’t remember seeing him treat anything like it was more than a tool. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him interact with anything that was obvious.”

She nods, and then sharply starts to gather a few things. “Help me get him into one of the rooms further back, just in case.” I obey her non-specific instruction, moving forward to shift my arms back underneath Jason and lift him. I grit my teeth for a second at the weight, which seems like more every time I lift him, but follow her outside when she heads that direction.

She leads the way to a room nearly all the way at the back of the building — I know, from a time or two, that it’s an actual room and not just the examination one — and opens the door, stepping inside and holding it to the side. She tilts her head at the bed in the center of the room, and I move to set him on top of the sheets. I don’t hear the door close, but she does come around to the opposite side of the bed and set her armful of supplies down on the waist-high bedside cabinet.

“Go back to wherever you found him,” she orders, with a no-arguing glance that I swear she learned from Alfred. “If you can find his container, having it nearby is important, especially with you vigilante types. Who knows when the last time was that he interacted with it?”

That’s a good point. It won’t be the cause of the sickness, but if Jason hasn’t touched whatever contains his soul in a while, and we keep him here to get well, he could start to suffer from the distance. Most importantly, it could slow down his recovery time. It won’t make him worse, unless he goes without contact with it for too long, but if deterioration starts it could slow down his body’s immune system with the stress. I’ve never seen deterioration paired with an actual illness before, but I try really hard to _never_ be around people who’ve lost their souls. The insanity that takes them as they waste away is… it’s horrifying.

“Alright, I will.” I shift forward, reaching for the zipties tucked away inside one of the pouches of my suit. Dr. Thompkins looks at me with a bit of reproach. “He shot B,” I point out — she seems to somehow always know when we've been stitched up, so she should know that — “twice. I don’t know how dangerous he is, or if he’ll hurt you if you’re in his way. Do you need his shirt off?” She shakes her head, still giving me a look that tells me _exactly_ what she thinks of me restraining Jason, and I duck my gaze away from it. I carefully secure Jason’s wrists to the plastic frame of the bed, one to each side, and pull them tight enough to keep his hands in — no matter what he might dislocate — without actually digging them into his skin. Delicate balance.

“I assume you have something to scan for his container?” she asks, and she _sounds_ snippy too. Oh _lovely_. I’m going to get one hell of a lecture later, I’m sure. Especially if Jason somehow charms her like he did his neighbours.

“Yeah, got it. Alright, I’ll be back as soon as I have it. Do you need anything else while I’m gone?” Jason’s apartment isn’t that far from here, and I can get through the window no problem. Searching everything might be a bit harder, but I’ll manage it. I should be back before the hour is through, and _hopefully_ he won’t wake up between now and then. I want to be here when he comes back to consciousness, just in case.

“He’ll probably appreciate a change of clothes.”

Right, yeah. What he’s wearing is going to be soaked through with sweat, and sick or not it’s always nice to be in clean clothes. “I’ll bring some. I shouldn’t be long; if he wakes up just… be careful.”

Dr. Thompkins arches an eyebrow at me as I look at her, waiting for some kind of sign that she’s actually going to follow my advice. “I have been dealing with criminals and vigilantes longer than you’ve been wearing tights, _Nightwing_ ,” she says instead, “and I remember when you thought that a v-neck and a stand-up collar was the height of fashion.” I flush just a little at the reminder — and I really thought I _was_ fashionable, that’s the painful part — and she tilts her head and flicks one hand towards the door. “I will be just fine. Go.”

I surrender, backing towards the door and slipping out. Alright, I have to think about the list of things that are _good_ about leaving Jason alone with Dr. Thompkins. One, he’ll be taken care of since no matter who her patient is, Dr. Thompkins always helps them. Two, it will give me the chance to call Bruce, and see if I can find any evidence or hints of what happened in his safe house. I haven’t got much else I can think of right now — and if he wakes up, if he _hurts_ her… — but it will have to do. I don’t have much other choice, and I really _do_ need to find Jason’s container. To help him, of _course_ , but knowing what it is, is also a tactical advantage.

It’s not a pleasant thought, in fact it’s one that nearly _hurts_ to think about, but if I get desperate enough, and he’s dangerous enough… I can use his soul to control him, if there’s no other option. _No_ other option. It’s awful, and underhanded, and it makes me a little sick just to think about — I _know_ how protective Jason was about his container, from growing up in Gotham’s slums — but if I don’t have any other choice, and I _have_ to control him…

I’d hate it, and maybe I couldn’t do it for more than a few seconds without the guilt getting to me, but in that kind of a situation a few seconds would probably make all the difference. If I had to, I would.

I just hope I _don’t_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weelllccommmeee! So, finally, we're getting around to the actual revealing of things. Angst all around, pain, anger, etc. Hope you enjoy!

Waking up feels a little bit like dragging myself out of hell. I slowly, _very_ slowly, get closer to consciousness. Starting with the dream — something about birds, bats, a talking grin, and a green lake — slowly phasing its way into reality. The two birds, circling high above me against the black night with flashes of red and green and yellow, start making very regular sounding beeps that _really_ don't sound like bird calls, and then the bat — hidden in the moon's patterns, but _I_ can see him — starts _looking_ at me with narrowed eyes in side glances. The grin fades, still hissing spite and blood and _madness_ but quieter, drowned out by the liquid sound of the lake as I dip my hands in it, and the beeps from the two birds.

I close my eyes, clenching my hands as the beeping gets louder, and I'm on my back, fabric rough and uncomfortable against my skin. Wrapped around me, and something's holding my wrists out to the sides. I arch a little bit, tilt my head back — my skull _throbs_ — and drag my eyes open.

The light is bright, I wince, and I pull in a shaky breath and try to make sense of my surroundings. Everything feels too loud, too stifling, but I manage to shove it away and lower my gaze down from what I'm almost positive is a ceiling. At least as far as the circle of the overhead light, and the black shadow blocking most of it out. Oh. Bats in moons. Thanks for _that_ one, oh fucked up mind of mine.

"Oh _hell_ ," I manage, and my voice comes out rough and scratchy through my painfully dry mouth. I swallow what little moisture is in my mouth as Bruce's head turns and focuses completely on me, and his mouth is a flat line emphasized by his clenched jaw.

I give one brief tug at what's around my wrists — zipties? Great, that means all my knives must be gone — and then still, stretching and shifting just enough to test out how responsive my body is. Not very, is the answer, and I feel weak and sore. Even worse than the normal ache that's always in my bones. Bruce is injured, I remember that, but feeling like this I _still_ doubt that I can actually take him right now. Not well, anyway, and not quickly. _Fuck_.

He stares at me for a long section of time, while I try and force my body to be just a little more awake and receptive to my commands, before his jaw shifts — grinding his teeth, he's _furious_ — and he speaks. "Jason." He says my name like it's a judgement, or some sign of my damnation.

I glance around the room — he's not going to hurt me while I'm strapped down to a hospital bed, no way — and find it otherwise empty, the door firmly closed, and me hooked up to a few machines that are broadcasting my heartbeat and pulse. Well, that could be interesting, if he's going to try and use it as a lie detector. Even if he _hadn't_ taught me how to lie, and Ra's hadn't enforced it, I don't _feel_ the guilt or fear that changes a normal person's heartbeat. He's not going to get anything off that machine.

There's also an IV in my right elbow, but at first glance I've got no idea what it's feeding into me. I don't feel sedated, and if I was on any kind of painkillers I'd be in less pain, but it must be _something_. I guess that depends on if I'm in a real hospital or not. The equipment all looks real, but there's no way they'd have let someone zip-tie me to a bed in a real hospital, right? Wait, Dick said he would take me to the clinic in Crime Alley, didn't he? Yeah, I remember that. So this is Dr. Thompkins’ place, which means there's no help coming from any kind of a legal area. I'm also not going to get hindered, I guess, which is good.

"Bird called you, huh?" I manage, having to swallow again to get all the words out. My voice still sounds cracked, rough and husky with whatever the hell this virus is.

His jaw works again, and I keep my eyes open just to watch what I can see of his face. I can guess what's going on underneath his cowl, pretty accurately, but the most obvious tells are going to be body language, and I actually have to be watching for that. Bruce never was much for words when a look would say everything he wanted it to, and when he was angry he _always_ defaulted to the disappointed cold shoulder after a brief explosion of yelling, or snapping. I think he's a little far past that now.

"Where is Dick, anyway?" I ask, testing the zipties again and watching the tiny jerk of motion as he reacts to me pulling on them. They dig into my wrists, and that stings just a tiny bit, but not enough to make me care. They're good quality ones, and they're pulled tight enough I won't be able to get out of them easily. I definitely can't do it while Bruce is standing there watching me, so I guess I should just stay more or less still and see how much I can unnerve him, or make him think I'm still weak and not yet a threat. Being sick, and weak, can earn me a lot of slack and pity.

I can make that work.

"He'll be back," Bruce nearly growls, lower and rougher than even his normal voice when behind that cowl. He goes back to watching me, _completely_ still, and I hold his gaze more or less steadily. I make sure to pause a few times to close my eyes, exaggerate the effort it takes to keep them open, but otherwise I just watch him like he's watching me.

There are lots of things I could say — to hurt him, or try for sympathy, or make him think I'm insane — but until I know what angle he's approaching this from it's best to keep all of my options open. If I'm deliberately cruel right now and say things to hurt him and drive him away, but he was going to pity and try to help me, that would destroy any chance I had of making that work. I can adjust myself to whatever way he wants to play this, and whatever will give me the greatest chance to get out of here and book it to my nearest safe house. No matter how that demands that I act.

On the plus side, I'm not nauseous anymore. I can feel myself sweating, the occasional shudder still fights me for control, my head _pounds_ in a way I associate with it getting slammed against a wall, and all my muscles are weaker than I'd like, but it's definitely not as bad as it was before I passed out. In Dick's arms.

I guess I should feel lucky that we're not on better terms, or he'd never let me live that down. As it is, he's probably just going to count it as a scary moment — I don't think Dick would ever get over it if I died before he had the chance to try and 'fix' me somehow — and move on. Probably never mention it again, which is probably for the best. If word got around that I blacked out under the influence of the _flu_ , I might lose some serious respect from the streets. Speaking of, I need to contact Ms. Li somehow and let her know that I'm getting better, and that I had a run in with the Bats, but handled it.

Assuming I _can_ handle it, and that I manage to get away from them. That could be pretty tricky. We'll find out how closely they think they need to watch me, and what I'll have to resort to getting away from them.

Bruce's head twitches to the side as the doorknob turns, momentarily freeing me from his gaze, and I glance that way too. Black and blue slips through the door; Dick in his Nightwing suit. Both of them here at once? _Fuck_ , that makes things harder. Or maybe easier, depending on how much they're in agreement about what to do with me. Depending on how long I've been out, and if they've had the chance to discuss, talk, or yell it out yet. If they have, this could go downhill pretty fast.

I'm _pretty_ sure that Dick would never let Bruce put me in a cell until they know the facts of what happened after I died, and I'm not going to be telling them that. Not until I have absolutely no other choice. What I'm doing is for _Gotham_ , and every single person living on its streets or in an apartment so rotting and fallen apart it's not much different. For every person forced into crime, or selling themselves, just to keep food in their stomachs. This is for _them_ , it has nothing to do with me, or what happened to me. It's _not_ important, and I don't want the both of them turning it around to be that.

Dick crosses the room, circling behind Bruce to the far side of my bed, and he definitely doesn't look _happy_ , but there's a slight relaxation of his shoulders that looks like he's relieved. Bruce's head turns enough to glance at Dick's new position, but his jaw stays tight and otherwise he's the equivalent of a statue. A hulking statue casting a bat shadow across most of my chest, anyway.

"Jason, you're awake." He sounds torn between relief and some kind of standoffish disapproval, and if I was capable of it I think it might be funny. As it is, I just take him addressing me as an opportunity to look at him, and pull my gaze away from the unmoving rock that is Bruce.

"Clinic, right?" I don't bother trying to make my voice sound any better than the mess it is right now. It'll add to the effect.

Dick nods, glancing down to the foot of the bed where Bruce is standing and then back to me. "You've been delirious for almost a day and a half, but Dr. Thompkins told us your fever broke about two hours ago. Feel any better?"

A day and a half would explain why I feel as worn out as I do, and as thirsty. I will not be asking for water from the two of them, at least not until I know which direction Bruce is taking this. He looks _furious_ , which doesn't quite click with how someone who's watched me be delirious and sick for more than the last twenty-four hours would be. Not even Bruce, and not even considering the fact that I shot him. Something else happened that I don't know yet, and not knowing… I can't feel wary, but I know that it isn't good, and I'd like to fill in the gap as fast as possible.

"Yeah." I let my eyes close for a second for effect, shift against the zipties — Dick is more likely to let me out of them than Bruce — and wince, then swallow before I open my eyes again.

Dick studies me, a little rigid and that sets off a few more remembered warning bells in my mind. Dick is an acrobat, he's graceful and flexible and almost constantly in some kind of movement, and him being _stiff_ means something is very, very wrong. What have the two of them found out about me? What happened? Was there some kind of bloodbath while I was unconscious that they think was on my orders, or did they find out something about how I was trained? What I've done that they might condemn even more than my actions in Gotham?

Did they figure out I don't have a soul anymore?

"While you were delirious," Dick starts, slowly and with another glance down at Bruce, "you said some things." Oh, _that's_ not good. Who _knows_ what I could have said while out of my mind with the fever? And the two of them have clearly already talked about it, and were just waiting for me to be conscious so they could confront me about it too.

"People say a lot of things when they're delirious," I point out, glancing between the both of them and carefully keeping my hands loose and every inch of my body language tired above all else.

I swear I can hear Bruce's teeth grinding from here, and I _know_ I hear the creak of his gloves. He must be clenching his hands underneath the fall of his cape. "Would you like to explain why you mentioned Ra's al Ghul, and his daughter Talia?" Every word is ground out, deliberate. "In the context of a _teacher?_ "

Alright, that's better than a lot of the other things that I could have said. Maybe they might jump to some assumptions that are completely wrong, but I can roll with whatever those are. If they think I've been brainwashed or something by Ra's, that might make them a little more susceptible to some kind of play of making them faked saviors. If they think they've 'saved' me, or that somehow what I've done has all been under his control, I might be able to convince them that I've been fixed or rescued, and then slip out while they go after Ra's.

I can take this that direction, make them put me in a cell — or just leave me here, which would be even better — while they hunt Ra's down and confront him. Ra's might be a little irritated at the interruption, but I think he'll also be a bit impressed at my acting, even if he sets the record straight with the two of them. That will at least get me free from the two of them, even if I'll have to be a lot more cautious about confrontations with them after this. If I let them catch me again, after fooling them — assuming I _can_ fool the two of them — they might agree to lock me away and throw away the key, rather than let me try and fool them again.

I have to play this carefully, and act well enough to _convince_ both of them. Well, at least my lack of emotion will help with that. Numbness can be a reaction to certain kinds of torture, or brainwashing, and I just have to play it far enough to make them think they've at least broken through a little. Then I can close my eyes and refuse to look at either of them, which will hide the lack of emotional response in my eyes. I can do that, no problem.

Let's start with some loyalty, and see if I can get them to repeat my own words back at me. That will help with exactly how to phrase what I say.

"That's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?" I ask dryly, but tense my shoulders for just a second and drop my gaze to the sheets beside my head. Avoidance.

They share a glance above me, and then I track the way Dick's gaze slips along my bare shoulders and linger on the marks of my scars. It's not exactly a misconception; Ra's _did_ cause those scars. He didn't believe in easy training, and I left my sessions with him bloody more often than not. Not all of it scarred, and I've been in the Lazarus Pit a time or two for particularly nasty wounds that were from my own mistakes. This is only what I healed from since the last time I got dunked in the Pit.

"You said," Dick says haltingly, baited and _hooked_ , "that the two of them pushed you pretty hard. That it hurt, but you learned a lot."

I let myself tense for another second, and then drag a tight smile to my face — it won't look real, but that actually makes it _better_ in this case — and avoid either of their eyes as I answer, "I doubt I was that coherent." It's not exactly a refusal, and it's definitely not any kind of explanation. If they think I'm avoiding answering, they'll jump to the worst conclusions. Of course they will, they're _Bats_.

"Jason," Dick's voice is carefully gentle, like someone dealing with a wounded animal, "did Ra's bring you back? Did he do this to you?" His gloved hand touches my shoulder, traces the line of a scar that follows my collarbone nearly exactly, and I make myself go very, _very_ still. I quicken my breathing a little to raise the rate of my heartbeat, and Dick pulls his hand away as if he's been burned. Good, that's good.

Mix the lies and the truth; avoid directly answering unless I can make it sound vulnerable, or grudging. "No," I answer shortly, and then flick my gaze briefly towards Bruce, at the foot of the bed, before returning it to the sheet beside my head. "And yes."

Dick stiffens a little further, and his head jerks in Bruce's direction like a non-verbal way to say: ' _See?_ ' Their conversation must have been quite the disagreement, I can use that too. If Dick is playing protector to Bruce's disbelief and anger, I can make Bruce guilty that he considered that I did this of my own free will. I can do this.

Bruce's jaw loosens just a little bit, and he shifts his weight for just a moment, long enough for me to catch the slight twitch of pain. His leg won't be anywhere near healed yet. "Jason," his voice sounds like it's been torn from his chest, "Dick couldn't find it, and Leslie made some _comments_ about your behavior while delirious." I don't _quite_ understand what he's driving about, so I settle for looking up at him and staying still, poised. He shares another glance with Dick before finishing, "Where's your container?"

_Shit_.

I buy time to think by jerking my gaze away, drawing my shoulders in like I'm being defensive as I twist against the zipties. If they find out I'm soulless they'll lock me away just to keep me 'safe', while they go on a mad hunt for my soul. Not going to work, but no one's going to clue them in on that. I honestly don't know what kind of fate they might think would be right for me if they found out I don't have a soul, and probably never will. _If_ it even came back with me, it's in an unknown item in some random place, and that _really_ doesn't bode well for my chances of ever finding it.

Wait, maybe I can make this work. They think Ra's tortured me, at the _very_ least. Maybe I can…

I twist against the zipties, duck my head a little further and clench my eyes shut — mostly to hide the lack of emotion in them, though _actually_ that might not be necessary now — and let a brief moment of pain show on my face. Don't have to fake that, with the way my head is throbbing.

"I can't," I say shortly. There's a moment of tense silence, apart from the beeping of the machine in the background, in reaction to my refusal.

"Jason," Dick, with that same wounded animal tone, "you _have_ to tell us. _Please_. If we can't get it back to you—”

"I _can't_ ," I make myself stress the word, jerking a little harder against the zipties. The weakness in my muscles protests the violent movement, and sinking back into the sheets as I tilt my head back is easy. They can misread it how they want to.

Another couple of moments of silence. I'm almost sure they're trading glances and having a conversation above me, but I don't think opening my eyes to check is a good idea. It might break the image I'm setting up here.

"What you've done in Gotham, and before, in Hong Kong…” Bruce lets it hang for a moment. "Why?"

"I was told to." That one's a straight up lie, unless anyone can actually count me telling myself to do it, which really doesn't work. But it's not like anything I do is going to betray that fact, not unless I screw up this act, _badly_. "I—” I let one of the shudders that wants to escape do it, and cut myself off. They'll misread _that_ too, if I've done it right.

I can hear Bruce shift, and then the soft pad of his footsteps circling the bed to stand opposite Dick, so I have one of them at each shoulder. He's not distancing himself any more, that's good. That means I've at least made him think, and made him unsure of whatever stance he's picked. Dick is an easier target — he's still paranoid, but Bruce easily holds that particular title — and it's Bruce I really need to convince. I learned how to act, so I can do this. I _had_ to be able to act to make people think that I still had a soul, or get them to see past the lack of anything in my eyes.

This is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to sell, but I can do it. I trust in my own skills.

I keep my head turned to the side, and flex my fingers, nearly _feeling_ Bruce's presence at my side. "Don't ask for what I can't give," I spit, pulling some of my eternal anger to the surface to let it infuse my words with bite.

"Just because you don't want to answer—”

For the sake of the show I cut him off, letting the anger hide the emptiness in my eyes as I jerk my head towards him and curl my lips up in a snarl. " _Can't_. Want has nothing to do with it, Bruce. I _can't_."

He's carefully still — not the furious stillness of before, but a wary one — and then Dick interrupts the moment by saying exactly what I've been trying to imply and get them to believe. "Ra's and Talia, they have your container, don’t they?"

I make myself flinch, pull in on myself, and arch my throat as I squeeze my eyes shut again. Letting the pain of the headache show in a furrowing of my brow and a clench of my jaw, a shortness to my breath that picks my heartbeat up for a few moments, isn't hard. I let my mouth part after that moment, drag in a breath and then bare my teeth, but don't open my eyes or relax my head from its arch, no matter how much my muscles are rejecting the idea of keeping it like that. I _have_ to for at least a little bit longer.

"Jason, _please_." That's Dick again, voice tight with worry and what I'm pretty sure is horror. "Is there anything you _can_ tell us? Why he'd do that? What the plan is?"

Bruce cuts in, voice deep and carefully blank. He's worried too. "If you're separated, how is he keeping you alive?"

I drag my eyes open, swallowing and slowly looking over at Bruce. Mix the truth in. "Lazarus Pit," I grate out, behind my teeth. "Keeps me sane and alive, more or less."

Bruce shares another glance with Dick, and then one hand reaches out from underneath his cape and, slowly, moves towards me. I let another shudder escape my control, but don't pull away as his gloved fingers touch my forehead and brush the strands of my hair back. They linger on the streak of white that hangs down.

"There's nothing you can do?"

I force a sharp, hollow laugh out of my chest. In this case, hollow is a good thing; I don't _want_ it to sound real. "I _tried_ ," I hiss up at him, with a jerk of my left shoulder that I'm sure will draw his eyes back to that scar along my collarbone. It's one of the nastier ones still left, but it really wasn't that painful by my scale. It's only this big because it's so close to bone.

Bruce's hand leaves my face, and then clasps over my upper arm. I'm pretty sure he's trying to be reassuring, and maybe if I was still Robin the solid clasp of fingers would be, but right now it's just mildly uncomfortable to my sensitive skin. I don't let it show, and even if I wasn't in the middle of acting a certain way, something so minor would never make me show anything I didn't want to. Not even while I'm sick.

"Is there anything you can tell us, Jason? Where he has your container, or what it is? Anything about where Ra's is? How does he contact you?"

" _B_ ," Dick stresses, giving me a second to think about my answers, "let him breathe." And Dick has stepped into full on protective mode; perfect.

This is good. Their assumption makes everything easy for me, _ridiculously_ so. Someone without possession of their soul has to follow the orders of the one holding it, and Ra's is just about the most dangerous enemy Bruce has. He's taken _hundreds_ of people's souls to control them, most of it temporary. He knows how to weave a net of commands that keeps a person's independent thinking and skills alive, while keeping them bound to exactly what he wants them to do. Most of them, you'd never know they were doing anything but exactly what they wanted to. I’d be furious with him because of that, but usually once he’s gotten what he wants from them he gives it back.

Bruce knows how good Ra’s is at this. He's asking just in case, not because he actually thinks that Ra's messed up on _me_ , of all people. If anything, if Ra's actually had my soul, he'd be infinitely more cautious about his commands for me than he would be to anyone else. I was _Robin_ , and I was a street rat before that; I know how to exploit any and all loopholes. Ra's wouldn't take that chance. That I've said as much as I have can be explained away by having to still give me enough ease in the straightjacket of commands to allow me to be as good as I'm capable of.

That's what the torture would, theoretically, be for. It would make sure that I didn't take advantage of anything, or at least it would try to. It's hard to torture a Robin into doing anything they don't want to, and even harder to keep that kind of power over one with distance. Even if someone had succeeded at breaking me — in this alternate world where I'm not doing this completely by myself — and I actually wanted some kind of help to get free, no torture would hold me while I was this close to Bruce and Dick. They're _Bats_ , they could help no matter who had me.

Of course, it's all kind of pointless to consider, since this is completely my own choice. My scars, physical and mental, are my own mistakes, and they taught me to take pain so I can't regret them.

I won't.

"Jason?" Dick's voice is quiet, not quite the 'wounded animal' soothing of earlier but something similar, if just a little harder.

I look at him, glance back at Bruce, and then clench my jaw down and shake my head. Bruce's hand contracts over my arm for a second, and then he very carefully releases me. I flex my hands, not pulling against the zipties but just slowly clenching my hands to fists before flaring my fingers outwards in a stretch. They're having another silent conversation over my head, and I can read some of it, enough to get the basics — they're discussing how to deal with this, basically — but not enough to get the specifics of what they're deciding. I'm too out of practice to read things like this anymore, muscle memory doesn't cut it.

Finally Bruce looks down at me, jaw working for a second before he asks, steady and quiet, "I assume you can't tell us anything about your orders." I don't confirm or deny it, in any way, and he gives a very small nod. "You're under our control, Jason. What are you going to do?"

That's not bad phrasing. Maybe if any of this was real it might have worked, which means I can give at least a stilted answer.

"Wait," I answer flatly. It's true, which helps. I'll wait for them to be gone, and wait for my chance to get out of these zipties and then book it out of the clinic. I can hole up in a safe house until I'm recovered, and I stand more of a chance of outrunning or evading the both of them as they hunt me down.

There's a moment of silence, like they expect me to continue, before Bruce speaks. "Why just wait?"

I swallow, shift and roll my shoulders in a little bit. "Me? Make it out of the custody of Batman _and_ Nightwing all by myself? Not gonna happen."

Because Ra's would know that the two of them would watch me like hawks, and that if I struggled, fought to escape them, or was caught trying to get out, they'd put me in the kind of cell I'd never be able to break out of. More importantly, it would be the kind of cell that would be _really_ hard to get me out of. I'd be an ex-Robin killing machine under his orders, he wouldn't risk losing me like that. Better to let the lack of contact betray that the Bats had me, and then quietly break me out himself and get me back on the streets. That's cleaner, and on the off chance that I didn't say anything telling to the two of them, or they didn't figure it out, he might even be able to hide his involvement. It would be better for him in every way.

Bruce studies me for a long few seconds — I don't hold his gaze, but I don't have to — and then finally jerks his chin in what I'm almost certain is a 'come with me' movement, and turns on his heel to head towards the door. Dick moves at the same moment, which means I was right about what that jerk meant, and circles around the bed to follow Bruce as he opens the door and slips out. Neither of them look back at me, so I relax back into the bed and close my eyes as soon as the door is closed again.

Well, that went a lot better than it could have.

At least for now, it looks like I reinforced their assumptions and got them to believe that Ra's al Ghul has my soul, and that everything I've done has been on his orders. If I guessed it right, they should hunt down Ra's like hound dogs, which will leave me free to break out of wherever they stash me and hide from their inevitable return. If I get out in time, I might even call Ra's and let him know that I set two very angry Bats on his tail. I doubt he'll take it personally, but just in case. Ra's is a good person to know, and I don't want to wreck my relationship with him just because I turned attention towards him instead of me.

He'll understand, I'm sure, but he'd appreciate a heads up. If I've got time, I'll give him one.

Of course, all of this hinges on whatever conversation they're having behind that closed door. If one of them stays behind to watch me, that will be a hell of a blockade to my plans. I can probably get around it, but it will be a lot of extra work, and careful timing. If they lock me up I can break out, and if they leave me under someone else's watch I can manage it, but one of them staying behind? Bruce would be paranoid to the extreme, blaring alarms and the whole routine, and Dick's already proven that he's aggressively mothering and observant when he's taking care of someone. Or at least, taking care of me. Escaping either of their watches would be… Well, 'difficult' is putting it pretty damn lightly.

I swallow, trying to _force_ moisture into my still-dry throat, and take a deep breath to start a count, to push the pain of my headache away. Now isn't the time to embrace it, I need a clear head so I can focus on what I need to do here, and I don't want to have to focus through the pain. I just want it to be done and over.

Alright, if I were one of them, what would _I_ do? It won't be totally accurate, because I lack the ability to feel worry, or concern, or anything that might make one of them stick around to keep an eye on me, but it will at least give me a basis.

On one hand, I've proven that I'm dangerous. I beat Dick, shot Bruce, and I've killed and hurt a lot of people since I came to Gotham. But, it's also believed that I didn't do any of it of my own free will, and a much greater enemy is just using me as a puppet to do his work for him. The _assumption_ is that I actually want help, and that I've said what I can to try and give them the information they need. Mostly, that I'll wait for outside help instead of fighting them. Add on top of this that I'm sick, and it's pretty serious. Dick saw me pass out, and they've spent the last day and a half watching me be delirious and probably burning to the touch.

Well, that's actually an easy thing to answer. I'd go _now_.

I'd take both Bruce and Dick and hunt down Ra's — Bruce probably has a pretty good idea of where he is right now, anyway — while, even if I'm lying or being forced to lie, I'm weakened, sick, and probably can't put up that much of a fight against whatever security they leave me in. If they're quick, and they deal with Ra's without too much trouble, they could be back before I have any time to recover. Also, Ra's is a little too dangerous, well-armed, and surrounded by a loyal army, to face one-on-one. Not even Bruce would take those kind of odds if he could bring Dick along with him. This is safer.

In fact, it would also give Ra's the smallest possible slice of time that he could be warned that they're coming, which makes it easier to get in and confront him by himself, instead of behind a wall of ninjas. It really _is_ the best course of action.

Of course, 'best' is my view, and my view doesn't have any kind of emotions behind it. Most people aren't capable of choosing paths like that; emotions inevitably influence their decisions, for better or worse. But, I think, if anyone is capable of coming to the same conclusion as I am it would have to be Bruce. He's always been good at pushing aside any personal bias and choosing the path with the highest rate of success, no matter how hard it is or how much he dislikes it. Unless it involves something that goes against his 'rules,' naturally. Otherwise Gotham would be a much cleaner place, with a lot fewer graveyards.

Still, despite his ridiculous, naive, _pointless_ rules, he'll probably see the situation the same way that I do, or at least similarly. Which means he'll take Dick, hunt down Ra's, and confront him as quickly as possible. Maybe he leaves me here — I bet that depends on what Dr. Thompkins says about how I'm doing — or maybe he puts me in a cell somewhere, temporarily, but he'll leave as fast as possible. Or, maybe he leaves me here but he gets someone to come watch me.

Someone he trusts, who can be clued in to the fact I'm Red Hood, know that I was Robin, and be trusted with my identity and whatever I might say. I'm not sure Bruce actually has anyone he's that close with except Dick. Maybe Barbara, but Bruce wouldn't put her near me like this, not after how I shot him and hurt Dick. Plus, they'd have to clue her in on who I am, and that could get ugly fast. The same goes for the new boy, Timothy. If Dick won't bring him around me, than Bruce _definitely_ won't.

I take my time breathing deeply and steadily, trying to minimize the pain I'm in and coax some kind of strength back to my muscles. I don't quite slip into meditation; I don't want to.

It's _easy_ for me, without anything but anger in my way to slip into a blank state, but once I'm there… There's just no point in it, and there's nothing there for me. I can do my thinking just fine while still fully connected and conscious of my own body and everything around me, and I can do it without feeling the hollow, dark, _lack_ in me nearly as keenly. All meditation ever does for me is remind me that I don't have a soul to focus in on, so I avoid it. It makes me hyper-aware of everything that I've spent all this time learning to deal with, and there's no benefit in it for me that I can't get outside of a meditative state instead.

I think I succeed at least a little. Some of the exhaustion permeating my muscles slips away, and the desire to tremble eases a fair amount. I spend a few minutes shifting against the zipties and testing exactly how tight they are, how strong, and how easily I might be able to get out of them. Not easily, is the answer. They're not painfully tight, but they're not going to come loose easily, and I'm not going to be able to contort my hands badly enough to slip them. Well, that makes things a little tougher, but I shouldn't have expected anything less. After all, either Dick or Bruce is the one who put these on me, and they know their business. Without knowing my intentions, they wouldn't risk anything.

I let myself rest, easing into the slight comfort of the bed and the sheets — even if they are damp from my own sweat; _oh_ I could use a nice, hot shower to get the sweat off my skin too — as I take the time while the two of them are gone to just relax.

In fact, I actually end up half-asleep before the noise of the door opening jolts me back to awareness. It's Dick that comes in, and I'm mostly awake but still tired so I don't let my eyes open all the way. I keep them half-lidded, and keep myself looking exhausted and a step away from sleep as he approaches. I force a small twitch as he leans down a little bit and reaches out, tracing his fingers across my forehead and then back across my scalp. I don't have to fake the very faint sigh that I give at the touch, or the way my eyes flicker closed.

People don't get close to me. If I'm outside of my costume, then the look in my eyes scares people away, and if I'm in my costume than most people wouldn't even consider getting within a hundred feet without a weapon or two. Physical pleasure has nothing to do with emotions, so it's something I can still feel, and the touch feels _good_ in a way that I can't control. It's gentle, warm even through the gloves, and it's more cautiously than anyone has touched me since I died. I can't be lonely, and I can't miss things, but I'm realizing that the lack of touch has made me a lot more sensitive to it. I'm not totally sure it's a good thing, but it's not something that I can fix very easily.

Maybe I can find someone willing in a bar somewhere and just make sure they see as little of my eyes as possible. That could work. Maybe later, after I've recovered and I can actually spare any kind of time to anything beyond running Black Mask's organization and keeping the streets clean.

"Jason," Dick says softly, and I pry my eyes open a little bit to look up at him. "Bruce and I, we're going to find Ra's, alright? We're going to find the bastard and get him to give us your container, and then we're going to bring it right back here. We shouldn't be that long, alright Jay?"

I give a very small nod, not showing any of my knowledge, and hollow satisfaction, that they're both playing right into my hands. Dick leans further down, and I close my eyes at the press of his lips to my forehead, and leave them closed as he pulls back.

"Can I get a request?" I ask, roughly and slowly.

"Ask it," he answers, immediately.

I force my eyes back open, and quirk the corner of my mouth in what has to be more of a painful grimace than an actual smile. "Let me out of these so I can take a piss? Think we've been down this road before."

His returning smile looks as awkward and painfully not real as mine must have been, but he also gives a small laugh and nods. "So long as you promise not to pass out on me. Bad enough the first time."

"I think I can manage that."

He takes my flat tone as something like sarcasm, I'm pretty sure, and reaches into one of the pockets of his suit to collect one of his modified brand of batarangs. He leans across the bed and slices the far ziptie first, and then the one closer to him. I flex my wrists, rolling them and stretching my fingers out, as he circles the bed to get to the far side, dragging the stand for the machine hooked up to my IV with him. When he gets to the other side he leaves the stand to the side, and then carefully disconnects the sensor compressing my finger to read my pulse. Thankfully, the machine just goes dull instead of screeching an alarm at the lack of a pulse beneath it. I really don't want Dr. Thompkins racing in here to make sure I'm not dying.

He offers me a hand, which I take, and then carefully pulls me up to sitting and then all the way to standing. The change in angle makes my head throb, and how heavily I lean on him isn't an act. I press my head in against his shoulder to get control of myself, to try and breathe evenly again, and repress the headache back down to where I had it.

He holds me up, right arm bracing underneath mine and around my back, and his left hand at my waist, gripping firmly but not hard enough to bruise. Not yet anyway. I'm alright, I just need a moment to get myself back under control before I start moving, and actually supporting more of my own weight.

Dick shifts me a little bit, towards a more even distribution of my weight into him, and snorts. "You're annoyingly tall and heavy, you know that?"

I take another couple of deep breaths before countering, "You're not _that_ different from me, Dick. It's what, three inches?"

"Or so. Can you move, Jason, or should I just pick you up and carry you? You could relive the trip here while you're actually conscious to appreciate it." That tells me some interesting things about how I got here. Dick carried me for at least some of it, which means that he probably didn't call Bruce until he was already here, and maybe not even until I was delirious and pretty bad off. I'd _guess_ he probably called Alfred and took the car; swinging with someone as heavy as me is a pretty big effort, and it wouldn't have been as fast as just driving.

"I can move." I straighten up a bit to prove myself, carefully pulling my weight back onto my own legs from where it's been pressing down on Dick's shoulders and torso. They hold, which I'm thankful for. They do shake a little bit though, and I amend, "Kind of."

Dick maneuvers around me with the casual ease of someone used to dealing with unconscious or injured people, linking my left arm around his shoulders and his right around my waist. Most of my weight is on him, and he prompts me to wrap my free hand around the metal stand the IV is connected to before he slowly eases me forward. I can probably take more of my own weight — and actually, probably stand and walk — completely on my own, but I decide not to let him know that. The weaker I appear, the more likely they leave me alone and not under another hero's guard.

Dick takes me to the corner, to the cracked open door of the bathroom, and I find out that it's kind of painfully small. Not surprising, considering the neighborhood, and I can deal with it. I've dealt with a lot of worse places than a clean bathroom, however small. Dick tries to guide me in, and I pull away from him, leaning on the frame of the door.

"Yeah, no thanks. You watching once was enough, Dick." The look on his face is somewhere between unhappy and worried, and his jaw sets in a way I'm pretty sure is trouble, so I preempt whatever he's going to argue. "Look, it's got the metal cripple bars and everything, and if I fall over you'll hear it. Let a guy piss in peace."

He stares for another moment before slowly nodding, stepping back and away from me. His arms cross, and then he nods at the door. "Go on then, I'll be here."

I make a show of using the wall to brace myself, only part of which is fake, and take the invitation. If I close the door with a pointed glance, and a little more firmly than normal people do, well, he's not going to blame me.

The second it's closed I straighten up, cautiously testing my weight. Both legs hold after a moment, and I brace a hand against the wall just in case, but take a step away from it. Everything works, and I can feel the weakness and the ache but it's not enough to stop me. I take care of business, wash my hands, and take a brief glance around for anything I might be able to use. Nothing, of course. This is Crime Alley, and Dr. Thompkins isn't stupid enough to give her patients any more weapons or tools than she absolutely has to, though I'd bet Bruce and Dick swept the room too, just in case.

Well, harder but not impossible. Just gotta play the weakness well enough that Dick doesn't secure me as well as last time. Dick can be pretty soft with people he cares about, it shouldn't be that hard. Even if he does, I can figure out _something_ to get around the zipties. I'll make it work.

I snag the metal stand again, lean against the wall beside the door, and pull it open.

Dick looks very unimpressed by my resilience, or maybe my insistence, and I roll my eyes — or something close to it; I've kind of forgotten how to do that naturally — and lift one shoulder in a shrug. He comes over to me, not quite helping me just yet but just standing in front of me instead, studying obvious even behind that mask.

"You could have just let me help," he says, the reproach obvious in his tone. "Your pride's not _that_ important, is it, Jay?" I think it's more of a question than he meant it to be, and my mind comes up with the right answer within the second.

I tighten my grip on the metal stand, almost as much as I clench my jaw down, and force my eyes to narrow. "I've had _enough_ of being watched, thanks, _Dick_."

He jerks like the words are a blow, wincing and clearly taking my implication just like I meant it to sound. Not all torture is physical, and Dick knows that. All of us have been through the ringer at least once, it just becomes something you learn to deal with, and we all find different ways to make sure we can stand against whatever people throw at us. At the least, we read up on what to expect. We have to.

"I— Jason, I'm sorry."

"Doesn't matter," I snap, pulling my gaze away from him. I lean a little more heavily against the wall, and then jerk my head towards the bed. "Do you mind?" I demand, letting anger seep into my tone.

Dick hesitates another moment, and then softly asks, "Jason, if you could come back, would you?"

I don't even have to _fake_ the reaction to that question. I stiffen, snapping my eyes up to meet his, and anger burns and _tears_ at my control as my lip curls upwards to bare my teeth. It's completely out of my hands, the urge to just leap at him and _claw_ and make him understand this _rage_ is all-encompassing. Only the fact that I know I can't holds me back, and then only by a thread. If I was just a little stronger, a little less _weak_ , I would have.

"How fucking dare you even _ask_ me that?!" I snarl, clenching both hands and considering the satisfaction versus pain that might happen if I throw the IV stand at him. No point, won't _feel_ how good it might be anyway. It might calm some of this _fury_ , but there's no guarantee. Not worth it.

He stands his ground, but I can see the very slight shift of his weight. Preparing to move, or leap, or get out of the way of whatever I might do. "Because you would or because you _wouldn't?_ " he presses.

My teeth grind together, and it makes the headache slam against my temples but there's too much anger in me to deal with that right now. "You think that if I'd had a _choice_ , I would have picked _anything_ but coming home? You think _any_ fifteen year old kid, when they wake up after _dying_ , has a _damn_ thought in their head except finding their family?!" I shake my head, taking a sharp, shallow breath to try and hold myself together enough to not forget that I don't stand a chance against him. " _Fuck_ you, Dick."

Even now, if I thought that they'd actually accept me as I am, I'd probably go back. But they won't, not ever, because I'm a soulless abomination that won't play by their rules. I know the fact I can't feel the pain of their rejection is a good thing, just like I know for a fact that there's nothing for me with them. There never will be. But the _thought_ that if I really had a choice I wouldn't have chosen them is… It's _infuriating_. All of the anger, none of the pain.

Dick looks a little stricken, and he's back to that tense stillness from earlier. "Jason, I—"

"What the _hell_ do you want to know?" I demand. "If I'm angry with you? Yes, Dick, I'm _pissed_ at both of you. Not for letting me get captured, or not getting there in time to rescue me, or even for _actually_ thinking I'd do this. I'm fucking _pissed_ because I crawled my way out of my own damn grave _years_ ago and neither of you even _noticed_.”

That part's true, it's _completely_ true.

Originally, yes, I was _furious_ at Bruce and Dick for letting the Joker have me, hurt me, and not getting there in time to save me, but I calmed that down. I still feel it somewhere in me, deep down inside that well of thoughts that I've repressed or ignored, but I know better now.

It's not their fault. It was a combination of my mistake, my 'real' Mother's selfish decision to sell me to the Joker, and the Joker's psychotic behavior that got me killed. None of it had anything to do with Bruce and Dick, not really. I don't know how they searched for me, I have no idea how close they got, and I have no idea how hard or easy the Joker made the search, or how _misleading_. I can't blame the two of them for that, and I can't be angry about it. Not really. I can be irritated that they put another kid on the street in my place, but I don't know the story behind that either.

Know all the facts and _then_ come to a judgment, is something that was driven into my head from every teacher I've ever had. Bruce, Ra's, Talia, and Lady Shiva alike. They made sure I wouldn't ever make a foolish decision, especially Ra's. Ra's made sure that I focused on the rationality that being soulless gave me, and _never_ let the one thing I could feel, my anger, control me. He warned me time and time again that if I let the anger control me, if I even _thought_ about letting it guide my actions, I would create my own ruin. I believed him; I still do.

I don't know enough about what they did to save me, or why Timothy is on the streets as Robin, and I won't judge either of them for it before I know why, how, and exactly what happened. I _won't_ let my anger have me like that.

But not even _noticing_ that I'd torn my way out of the grave they put me in, or that I was wandering in Gotham for _months_ before Talia found me? Oh, I can be _pissed_ about that. That has nothing to do with what they may or may not have done to fix it, or to study it. The fact that they didn't notice my grave had been disturbed means that they didn't visit my grave enough to notice what had happened, and that somehow, in all those months I was on the streets, they never once saw me. After that, the _years_ I spent with Ra's, and they never knew any of it. That has nothing to do with how good an enemy is, or how everything just went _wrong_.

They _failed_ , and I can be absolutely furious about that. I can allow myself to be furious about that.

Dick recoils a little further, and then his mouth parts and he's gasping out, "I'm _sorry_ , Jason. I didn’t know— I’d never— I’m _sorry_.”

“Your apologies don’t mean _shit_ to me, Dick,” I point out, harshly, and maybe he doesn’t deserve it but it’s part of the show, even if it’s not a lie. “I _still_ would have chosen to come home, furious with both of you or not. If I thought for a _second_ that I could have come home, I would have, you _jackass_. You don’t _ever_ get to ask me that again, you understand me?” He winces, looking self-hating and guilty, and I shake my head and yank my gaze away from him.

“I shouldn’t have ever—”

“ _No_ ,” I snap, cutting him off, “you shouldn’t have.” There’s a long few moments of silence between us, and then I roll my right shoulder, flash a glance at him, and set my jaw. Slowly, carefully, I push the anger down and rein it in. “It’s gonna be bad if I try and get over there by myself,” I point out, grudgingly.

Dick moves before the half of an invitation is even fully out of my mouth, carefully taking up his last position underneath my arm and with his own arm braced firmly around my waist. I really wasn’t lying. Even if Dick wasn’t here, and I could move freely without giving myself away, I don’t think I could have made it all the way over to the bed with any real kind of speed, or grace.

It’s a _really_ good thing that my closest safe house is only about seven blocks away. It’s one of the shittier places I have, but it’s got enough to let me hide in it until I can at least stand and move somewhere else. Otherwise I might have had to call a taxi, or a ride from someone, and that would have been easier to trace and much more complicated.

There's a moment where Dick is getting me back into the bed and pulling the blankets up and over me, that he pauses. His head tilts down, he obviously glances at the door, and then he gives a small shake of his head and sighs. I don't comment, but I know that he knows I saw the small reaction, even if I might not have totally understood it. Physically, it _does_ feel good to be back underneath the covers. The rest of the world feels cold, especially considering hospitals are almost always a little chilly, and I'm not wearing anything but boxers. The warmth is nice in a physical sense, being comfortable is always nice.

Dick's hand traces down the side of my face, my neck, and pauses where the covers are pulled up past my shoulders. "Jason, give me your hand."

I pause a second, considering my options, before realizing I don't have any and pulling my right arm out from underneath the blankets. His fingers wrap around my wrist, he shifts to pull something out of a pocket that I can't see at this angle, and then cold metal clicks around my wrist. My breath catches a bit at the feeling, but he winces like he thinks it's because of what he's doing — I'd bet Dick thinks I've got a pretty big trigger for being restrained, among other things — and the touch of his fingers along my arm is soothing, apologetic.

He clicks the other end of the handcuffs down where my wrist was secured earlier, and then carefully pulls the blanket out and back over to cover me again. "We'll hunt him down, Jay," Dick promises, mouth setting into an angry line for a moment before he leans down and presses a very soft kiss to my forehead. "Rest, get better. We'll be back."

I let my eyes close before he pulls away, letting my face slide into something open and relaxed — blank, but he doesn't know that — as his hand slides across my shoulder and I hear him step away. I don't open my eyes again until I hear the door shut, and then I take a look around — _carefully_ — for any bugs, or cameras, or absolutely anything that might ruin this act. Nothing, and that doesn't mean it's safe but I don't have the luxury of a more thorough investigation before I take the risk.

I test the handcuff, and how loose it is — easy for me to slip, with nothing more than a dislocation of my thumb — and then settle back down. Not yet. I have to wait at least a little while, and give Bruce and Dick enough time to get out of Gotham. If they're still in Gotham when I make my escape, and Dr. Thompkins calls them, I might not even make it to my safe house before they track me back down. I need them out of the country first, or at least on the way there. That means I need to wait and, since there's nothing better for me to be doing with my time, that means that I can do exactly what Dick suggested.

I can sleep for a bit, let some distance get between us and let myself recover a little bit more, and then make my escape when I wake back up. It's the best choice.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! So, terrible me, I don't actually have the next chapter of this ready? On the plus side, I know exactly what happens in that next chapter. I just gotta... finish all my commitments that have deadlines first. XD Enjoy!

I watch the clouds as we whip by them, the darkness only _barely_ illuminated by the moon and still far too black to see anything through. The moon is only a sliver at the moment, and we’re farther down through the cloud cover than we would need to be to really see the light. It’s not quite black, but it’s _dark_ blue and grey, and variations on that.

I think that’s a pretty good representation of this whole damned thing.

_Jason_ , with no _soul_. No, he _has_ a soul, but he’s separated from it. _Ra’s al Ghul_ has it, and everything my younger brother has done has been on the word of a sociopathic criminal lord, the Demon’s Head, the leader of the _League of Assassins_. That makes sense of _so much_.

It explains why Jason, the boy I knew, would _ever_ come back as someone so ruthless, so murderous, and so unconcerned with Bruce and me. Or why, every time I looked in his eyes, I knew in my gut there was something _wrong_ with him, something cold and blank that I couldn’t pin down. I thought it was just his lack of caring that I was cueing off of, I thought it was just _him_ , but now I can actually label it. Jason feels wrong, he feels _cold_ , because one of our greatest enemies has a hand wrapped around his soul and is _squeezing_. Who knows how long it’s been since Jason was allowed to actually touch his own soul? You have to, to stay alive and sane, but Jason said the Lazarus Pit fixes that, somewhat.

If Ra’s has been dousing Jason with the Lazarus Pit to keep him alive, instead of allowing him to reconnect with his soul, who _knows_ how emotionally and mentally shattered Jason could be? Can he even _feel_ anything? How strongly, what emotions, how much has his soul being owned by someone else affected him? Has Ra’s had it for the _years_ that Jason said he’d been alive again? Has he _ever_ been allowed to reconnect with it?

How _broken_ must Jason be, if that’s the case? How badly has Ra’s hurt him — the scars aren’t _that_ bad, but if he’s been getting thrown in the Lazarus Pit then any from before his last bath would be gone — and how long did Jason hold out? How _much_ did he hold out against? I know some of what Ra’s is capable of, and it’s not pretty.

I know that Ra’s is capable of some of the most inventive, _perfect_ soul manipulations Bruce and I have ever seen. He can wrap people up so firmly in his words and his commands that they can’t even think of escape, if he chooses to, but that sacrifices some of their autonomy. Putting Jason back in Gotham as his pawn, as Red Hood, would have required a lot more free will than that. More likely that he made sure Jason couldn’t talk to us — as well as he could, anyway — but left him enough breathing room that he could be as good as he possibly can. Jason always had so much _potential_ , he learned so _fast_. Ra’s wouldn’t want to kill his instinct, or his skills, so he _had_ to have left Jason enough room in the commands not to be crippled by them.

If it was as easy as just ordering obedience and having Jason fall to his knees, Ra’s wouldn’t be as frightening as he is. You can’t _force_ loyalty, not really. At his heart, whatever’s left of it, I don’t think Jason wants to do anything that Red Hood has done.

What he preached at me while I was in his safe house, the things he said… How much of that was him, and how much was Ra’s’ words in his mouth? If they were Ra’s’ words, how much was commands and how much of it was brainwashing or torture that _programmed_ him that way? Ra’s _knows_ torture, and Robins might be hard to break but Ra’s knows his methods and our tolerance for them. If he’s had Jason for _years_ , I don’t know how Jason could possibly still be all himself. Not with Ra’s controlling his soul, and with Jason under his heel. Not even one of us could hold out _that_ long, especially since—

It’s not just Ra’s, is it? Maybe Ra’s tortured him into obedience as much as he could without actually breaking Jason’s mind, but Bruce and I are the ones that were supposed to support him.

Jason said he— Oh _god_.

My hands clench, eyes squeezing shut for a second as I try and banish the thought of what Jason told me from my head.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, sitting in the seat next to me and piloting the jet. His voice is serious, just _slightly_ concerned, but most of what I can hear in it is restrained _anger_. Not at me, I know that, just like the anger churning low in my stomach next to the grief, and the guilt, isn’t aimed at him.

“I just—” I shake my head, staring out the window. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

I _have_ to consider the possibility that Jason was lying to us. I don't want to, there's not a single part of me that wants to think that Jason would actually do all of this of his own free will, but I have to. Jason said himself that he was _furious_ with us, so there's at least some piece of him that would willingly fight us. But…

"I'd like to," Bruce says quietly, "and the facts do seem to back up what he said, and didn't say."

"But do you _trust_ that?" I press, looking over at him. He's still except for the minute adjustments required to guide the jet, and his mouth is in a thin line, his jaw clenched tight.

"I can't," he says eventually, grudgingly. "No matter how much the facts seem to agree, I have to stay detached until we get a solid explanation."

"What are the other options?" I ask. We've covered most of this already, but I need to remind myself that there are other possibilities beyond Jason being Ra's' puppet. "Just humor me, B."

I can see his hands flex on the controls, and his head tilt as he looks over at the navigation to confirm where we are; still about fifteen minutes out from Ra's' current 'hideout.' A large mansion on top of a mountain, with nearly sheer cliffs on all sides, but it's well defended and hard to get to, so I guess that makes it a hideout. Especially for someone like Ra's, where a lot of the time comfort and appearances are more useful than practicality.

"The most likely option, after Ra's having Jason's soul, is that Jason purposely separated himself from it to hide it, and refused to tell us where it's hidden to not give us any kind of control over him." Which hurts to think about, but it's not as unlikely as I'd like it to be.

Jason was always extremely defensive about his container; it came from growing up in Crime Alley. If he really is who I'm afraid he's become, Red Hood, then he would never let us near his container if he could help it. Even if that meant pain for him, and lying right to our faces about what happened. But Jason was never the best actor, and maybe he could fool me — he's my brother, and that makes it really hard to see him as objectively as I need to — but Bruce? If Bruce didn't think he was probably telling the truth, he would never have let Dr. Thompkins insist that Jason stay at the clinic.

"But I've seen _you_ when you're separated for awhile, B, and you don't look like he does. He feels _wrong_ ; you get that off him too, right?" Memory comes back in a vivid slash, and I tilt my head back and give a slight laugh at my own _stupidity_. "The girls I talked to at the apartment building. The younger one said he was wrong, and the older one hushed her and said it was Jason's secret, not theirs. They _told_ me and I just—"

"Dick, stop. None of this is your fault. We don't know the facts yet, don't take any blame that isn't yours." I look back out the window of the cockpit, trying not to think about the way Jason's eyes seem _empty_ when they're not bright with anger. _Hollow_. "Yes," Bruce admits, quietly, "I feel it. It's nothing tangible, nothing I could explain, but—"

"It's something in his eyes," I finish, and out of the corner of my eye I can see him give a single nod. "You've never looked like that, Bruce. Not even in the worst times. You've never felt _wrong_ like he does. Besides, he was _delirious_. Maybe he wasn't making much sense, but we both know he was too out of it to be lying."

"You're twisting facts to suit the theories. I _know_ this is hard, Dick, and there's _nothing_ I'd like more than to believe every word Jason said, but we _have_ to keep our minds open." His voice softens, as I squeeze my eyes shut. "You know that."

I swallow and resist the urge to run a hand back through my hair to vent. I can take it out on Ra's when we get there, this is _his_ fault at least a little bit. Even if Jason did all of this by himself, he still talked about Ra's and Talia like they were teachers, which means Ra's knew he was alive again. _God_ , I need to know what happened. I need to know if what he said… I need to know if any of it is true. Or all of it.

"Bruce, could you hear any of what Jason and I talked about when I went back in?" I can see him check the navigation panel again, and then glance over at me.

"No," he answers shortly, and I shake my head.

"He's _so_ angry with us," I say softly, wincing at the reminder.

Bruce hesitates, and then responds, voice dark with pain and guilt, "We failed him in a lot of ways. Joker never should have gotten hands on him, and if it's true, Ra's shouldn't have either."

"No," I counter, looking over at the side of his face. "He said it wasn't that. He said it was because," my breath catches at the memory of the _snarl_ on Jason's face, "because he crawled out of his own grave, and we didn't notice. Bruce, if that's _true…_ ”

His hands have tightened on the controls, jaw clenching down hard enough that I feel like it must hurt, but his gaze is fixed straight ahead. "Facts first," he says flatly, only easing his jaw enough that he can spit the words through his teeth. If I didn't know better I'd think he was angry with me for bringing it up, but I know Bruce. He's angry, yeah, but at himself more than anyone else. He's always shouldered blame, even if it's not his, and even if no one else agrees that it's his fault.

He held onto Jason's death for a _long_ time, right up until Tim's presence, and our support, finally got through to him. None of us had a chance of talking him out of his own self-hatred and grief until he was ready to let it go. No matter what we did.

How long is he going to hold onto whatever we find out at Ra's al Ghul's? How hard is he going to take it? And what about Jason?

I hope that everything is as cut and dry as I want it to be, and all we have to do is reclaim Jason's soul and take him home. It won't be easy — he's _not_ the same person that we knew — but we could learn to help him, no matter what that takes. Maybe he could even be one of us again, _really_ one of us. Part of the family, and after a new name he could join us on the streets too. Not immediately — I'm not naive enough to think that Jason won't be hurt and at least a little _broken_ when we get him back — but maybe someday, once we've fixed him.

I have to believe that Jason can be fixed. Otherwise…

"Two minutes," Bruce says, all business but still with the same growl to his voice. "Nightwing—"

"Got it, B." I take a deep breath, counting it and forcefully pushing away all the conflicting emotions raging in my chest. I don't need anything but the anger right now, everything else I can deal with later.

I unbuckle myself and move out of the chair, shifting towards the back of the jet and the hatch built into the floor of it. I loop my hands through the bars at the top, so I don’t just drop out of it the second it falls open, and then glance up at Bruce. He’s working at the controls — I know the pattern well enough to know that he’s inputting the autopilot controls — and then releases them and stands to move back and join me. He has to crouch a little bit to not brush the top of the jet, but it’s automatic enough to look natural.

“We need him able to talk,” he reminds me, and I clench my jaw and resist the urge to glare.

“I _know_ , B. I’ll let you take point; handle anyone who tries to interfere. I know my job.” It stings a little bit that Bruce thinks he has to remind me that if I do too much damage Ra’s won’t talk to us. It stings even more to think that he might believe that just because it’s one of us in the crossfire — that it’s _Jason_ — that I’d forget all the years of training. I can control myself, even when people hurt my family. It might make me _furious_ , but I can still control myself.

Bruce gives a small sigh, reaching forward with his free hand to touch my shoulder. “I know you do, Nightwing.” He squeezes my shoulder, and I can feel some of the tension bleed out of me at the physical reassurance. “No matter what we find out down there, we’ll make sure that Jason gets whatever care he needs. Even if that means a cell. Understand?”

Double-edged reminder. _If_ Ra’s did take Jason’s soul, if what I want to believe is true, Jason’s going to need a lot of help to be himself again. Therapy, at least, and probably a whole lot more. But if Jason did all of this under his own free will, then it’s a much harder choice. Then he’ll really be a criminal, and no matter what he is to us he’ll need to be in a cell. At the _least_ , he’ll need to be contained for the safety of everyone else. It won’t be easy, but we’ll _have_ to.

God, I hope Ra’s has his soul. I hope this isn’t just what Jason has become.

I nod, answering Bruce’s mostly rhetorical question, and then tighten my grip on the bars as the jet’s computer beeps the familiar warning at us. Incoming drop. Bruce raises his second hand to the bars, lifts his weight off the floor — I do the same — and then the hatch falls open. Bruce lets go, cape flaring out to give him a little bit of gliding power as he falls, and I give it about a second before I let go and follow him down. Bruce is the one with the cape, and he’ll be the one to break the glass of Ra’s’ window. I’m just following him in.

The air is cold, thin from the height, but I hold my breathe for the first few seconds anyway. Bruce is a shadow in front of the light coming from Ra’s’ large windows, but it’s a shadow that I angle myself towards with the ease of practice. We’re coming in at an angle, and I see the stick and then explosion of a batarang in the window — to shatter the glass before we get there — as I reach down and grab my grapnel. I aim it right above the shattered window, and fire it. Bruce crashes through the leftover shards, rolling as he hits to dispel the force, as my grapnel sticks and draws tight against my arm. I let my momentum drain into the swing, disengaging it at a much safer speed to do the same as Bruce and roll when I hit the ground.

He’s already moving, leaping forward towards Ra’s. Ra’s, who looks _supremely_ unimpressed and unsurprised. That’s not right.

Bruce’s hands clench in Ra’s’ overcoat, dragging him forward and up a little bit to snarl into his face, “We need to _talk_.”

Ra’s still looks very unimpressed, and he’s still holding a glass of what I’m pretty sure is wine in his left hand, held out to the side. “Of course. Allow me to call off my guards? They’ll have been automatically alerted when you shattered the window.”

I glance around, scanning the room for anyone else. My gaze catches on the lit fireplace, the trays of snacks set out on the coffee table set a ways back from it, and the two glasses of what I’m fairly certain is wine. It’s not just that he’s not surprised, he was _expecting_ us. That’s a whole other situation, this is… This could be bad. Or maybe good? Did he track us coming in, or get warned somehow, or—?

“Say _one_ other word and you’ll regret it,” Bruce says, and I can hear the leashed fury in his voice. Right, Jason might be my brother but he’s Bruce’s _son_. There’s no way that he’s not just as furious at this idea as I am.

I carefully circle the room, checking behind everything as I tuck my grapnel away. It’s just the three of us, and I tug the curtains over the huge windows as well, to make sure it stays that way. Or at least that no one has an easy shot through the windows to us. Then I turn to watch Ra’s reach down and retrieve a small two-way communications system from beneath one of the folds of his dark green robe. Bruce is very still, poised to move at a second’s notice. Ra’s keeps his gaze level as he pushes the button on the side down, and turns his head just enough to speak into it.

“Commander, this is Ra’s al Ghul. Stand down; I will be entertaining a guest.” There’s no immediate crash of a door, or window, and Ra’s is completely calm as he tucks the communicator back away. “Shall we sit, Detective?” Ra’s offers. “Of course you are welcome to join us as well, Nightwing.”

Bruce slowly lets go, and Ra’s shows absolutely _no_ fear as he turns and sweeps away, towards the fireplace and the furniture in front of it. He’s still holding that glass of wine, and I share a glance with Bruce. He flicks his hand in a command to stay where I am, and then follows Ra’s. I pace around the edge of the room, unable to force myself to stay still, but stay close enough to hear every word. Ra’s takes the most comfortable looking armchair, relaxing into it like it’s a throne, and Bruce stays standing, near the back of the couch.

“You knew we were coming,” Bruce says, head tilting just a bit as he glances across the table and its array of snacks.

“I did.” Ra’s’ voice is matter of fact. “You will want to sit down, Detective; this is a little more complicated than whatever simple idea you have in your head.” Bruce doesn’t move, and Ra’s shrugs. “As you wish. Why don’t you tell me what you are here for?”

“ _Jason_ ,” Bruce nearly growls, and I keep my gaze on Ra’s for a moment to watch his reaction. There’s a tiny flicker of confirmation, but nothing else.

“Yes, that is what I assumed. What about him?” He seems completely unaffected by Bruce’s obvious anger, and I focus on him a little bit more closely. Ra’s is capable of what I think he’s done to Jason, I _know_ it, but he wouldn’t just be lying down and waiting for us to talk it out of him if he had Jason’s soul, would he? He doesn’t _actually_ think that he can convince us that he doesn’t have Jason’s soul?

One of Bruce’s hands comes forward, clenching down on the back of the couch. “His _soul_. Where is it?”

Ra’s’ mouth flicks into a smirk, and he takes a sip of the wine in his hand. “I do not have it, believe what you will. Jason Todd lied to you, Detective, and he’s long gone from the clinic you left him in. His call is the reason that I knew to be prepared for your arrival.” I can see Bruce tense, and I shove away the sickening swirl of pain in my stomach to take a step towards the two of them.

“Jason wouldn’t—” I start.

“You don’t _know_ Jason,” Ra’s counters, cutting me off with ease. “Death changes a person. As I said, you may both wish to sit down, if you’re looking for me to set the record straight.”

I hesitate, but Bruce moves, circling the couch and taking a seat near the middle of it. “I’m listening. If you _lie_ to me—”

“Pain and regret, I’m aware. We’ve played this game before, Detective. Are you joining us, Nightwing?” His gaze is sharp, but I wait for the slight tilt of Bruce’s head to take the invitation. I take a seat next to Bruce, near the furthest end of the couch from Ra’s. “Where would you like me to start, Detective?”

“The beginning,” Bruce says immediately. “How did you raise him?”

Ra’s’ shoulders roll in another shrug. “I did not. My daughter, Talia, found him on the streets of Gotham and brought him here. He was little more than a shell, mostly mad and running off little more than instinct. Best we can tell, he had been living that way for several months. She asked permission to bathe him in the Lazarus Pit, and I granted it. That restored his mind.”

I try not to show how much that _hurts_. Living on Gotham’s streets for _months_ , and none of us saw him? God, Jason is _right_ to be as angry with us as he is if this is true. If he was right under our noses for that long, we failed him on a level that’s unbelievable. If _Talia_ found him before any of us… And that would mean that what he told me would have to be true. He clawed his way out of his own grave, and we _missed_ it. If he never forgives us for that, I think I’ll understand.

Ra’s’ gaze flicks to the fire for a moment, as he swirls the wine in his glass. There’s something in his eyes that seems dark, maybe even withdrawn, and it lingers as he looks back at the two of us. “His soul, on the other hand, it did not. When my daughter found him, he did not have a container. Presumably, it either did not come back from the grave with him, or inhabited something far from where he awoke. That was most of why my daughter wished to save him; the strength to live without a soul for that many months is undocumented, no matter how poor his state was when she found him. It was untested, but there was a possibility that the Lazarus Pit would seal over the torn edges of his soul’s connection like any other wound. As you can see, it worked.”

My heart plummets.

“So, Detective, there’s the truth of your son’s return. He does not have a soul, and I kept him alive, but had nothing to do with his state in the first place.” Ra’s taps his fingers on the side of the glass, and Bruce is _perfectly_ still next to me. “Before you ask, yes. I offered him the option to stay here until he decided what he wanted to do with his new existence, and trained him when he asked me to. I admit that I did it because of the chance he might choose to work for me — he would be a rather gifted assassin — but that wasn’t the path he chose. Jason is incapable of emotion, with the exception of rage, and that is a side effect of the Lazarus Pit. However, that does not mean he lacks morals, his sense of self, or his memories.”

Ra’s’ mouth curls in a very small smile, for just a moment. I can’t stop _listening_. “The man you’ve met is Jason at his core, without guilt or fear to hold him back. He is fully aware that both of you will condemn him for what he’s chosen to do, but he is also convinced that what he has decided on is the right course of action, and knows he will not feel the emotional pain of your rejection. No, I did not suggest it to him, or even attempt to hint it. His plan to control crime in Gotham, and minimize all civilian casualties as well as harm to anyone not involved, is purely his own. I simply taught him what he asked me to, which were the skills he would need to accomplish it.”

“And what did _you_ get out of this?” Bruce asks, quietly but firm and _dangerous_. I risk a glance at him, wondering if I’m going to have to shove everything aside and be the voice of reason. Ra’s didn’t _do_ anything, not really. Not if he’s telling the truth.

“A promise,” Ra’s answer simply. “As long as I do not endanger the world, Gotham’s innocents, or any of you, Jason will never interfere with my business dealings. Other than that, perhaps someday I will be able to use him for my own purposes, and I have added something else to the board for you to focus your attention on, Detective. He’s a rather gifted student, but you knew that already.”

Bruce jerks, like he’s going to stand, but settles back before my automatic grab at his arm even makes contact. I leave my hand there though, wrapped around his bicep and holding on. He needs the reminder, he needs _someone_ at least a little level headed and I can be that right now. I can… I can fall apart later, deal with all of this _later_. This is just as dangerous as a combat situation and I need my wits about me to deal with Ra’s, if Bruce won’t or can’t.

“Do you have any idea where his soul is, or what it’s in?” I try and keep my voice steady; mostly, it works.

“I have my guesses as to what it’s in — Jason’s death was quite the _trauma_ , and that narrows the possibilities of a container — but as to where it is?” He shakes his head, takes another sip of the wine. “No, I have not attempted to find it. He may not be your equal, Detective, but I respect Jason’s skill too much to make an enemy of him by attempting to find and control his soul. He would get loose, either by his own hand or yours, and I’ve taught him too much for that gamble to be worth it. His promise won’t hold unless he sees reason to keep it.”

“Then why would he warn you?” Bruce is still rigid underneath my hand, still as if he were a statue, and his voice is… It’s a little scary, even to me.

“Because Jason doesn’t want to make an enemy of me either, Detective.” He glances towards the fireplace again, tilts the glass to take a sip of the wine. “Mutual respect is a powerful force.”

“Jason—” I don’t even know how I was going to finish that sentence, because Ra’s smoothly cuts me off.

“Is not the boy you knew.” His eyes slip past Bruce, find my gaze and lock there with such intensity it feels like he can see my eyes right through the barrier of my mask. “But that does _not_ mean that he is anything but uniquely himself. Do not delude yourself into believing that he is insane, or that the absence of his emotions has somehow changed his core values. He is fully capable of reasoning, and his morals are as intact as they ever were. He remembers everything, and he remembers what it felt like to feel at all. The only thing that has changed is that he no longer feels the guilt you ground into him over the choices _you_ would not approve of. Jason has decided on a course of action, and as much as you might wish it you cannot change his mind. The only reason he would do so would be if a better plan were presented to him, one as efficient as what he is currently in the process of enacting.”

“You know his plan,” is what I fixate on. I _have_ to. The thought that something in Jason has been so warped, so _twisted_ , that he would— I can’t. Not now. I can go through Bruce’s footage — he has to be recording this whole meeting through his cowl — later and dissect every word. Hear everything said and unsaid, and then take it to a private corner of my world and let it tear me to shreds like I _know_ it’s going to. But not right now. Not yet.

“I do,” Ra’s confirms, “and I will not be telling you.” He says it like it’s some kind of impenetrable fact. Like there’s no way that anyone, ever, could make Ra’s tell us what he doesn’t want to. It’s probably exactly that true. “We are nothing like friends, no need to worry, Nightwing. Jason and I maintained a relationship of mutual benefits, nothing more. I taught him what he wanted to know, and he did not turn those skills back on me. Perhaps, someday, your unwillingness to accept what he has become will drive him back to me. I would gladly welcome an assassin of his skill, even if I could only use him for those targets that he believed deserved death.”

“He’d _never_ —” Bruce starts to snarl, and Ra’s immediately snaps that cool, intense gaze back to him.

“Shoot you?” he counters, dryly. “Threaten to expose your identities if you put him in a cell? _Lie_ to you? You may not wish to believe it, Detective, but the boy you knew is not the man you are so determined to save.” He drains the last of what’s in the glass, frees Bruce from his gaze to lean forward and set the empty glass on the table. “There was never a time while you worked with him that you saw what he was? Some moment where he was darker than you allow in your Robins? Some moment he _defied_ you, but of course you could never prove what he might have done. You didn’t look too closely, naturally.”

I can see Bruce give the tiniest of flinches, and my heart sinks at the reaction. There _was_. Maybe I don’t know what it is, maybe Bruce never brought it up, but there was _something_ that Jason did, once, that made him question if my brother was suited for the name Robin. Some reason that Bruce can imagine Jason killing, and maybe worse, without the same level of disbelief that fills my mind. _Something_.

“We talked about a great many things while he was here.” Another small flinch, and Ra’s raises a hand in pacification. “Jason was always careful, Detective. I know quite a bit about him, and many stories of the three of you, but he never discussed you as anything but your assumed identities, even if he was aware I know your true names anyway. He may be defying you, but he still defends all of you. Very little could ever anger him faster than the suggestion of anyone harming your collected ‘family,’ if that is what you wish to call it.”

That’s… That’s good, right? If Jason is still defending us — even if he shot Bruce, even if he fought me — that means he has to still care somewhere, right? _No_ , that’s not fair. Jason _can’t_ care; he doesn’t _feel_. We have to fix that.

God, we have to get back to Gotham _right now_. If what Ra’s said is true, if Jason called him to warn him and is already gone from the clinic… He’ll be deep in hiding, but he’s still sick. Maybe there will be at least a little bit of a trail. _Anything_ that we can track him down with.

“B.” I try and put some of that into the tone of my voice. Bruce obviously is thinking some of the same things I am, because he uncoils from his stiff tension a little bit and nods vaguely in my direction.

He gets to his feet, wrist twisting in that particular way to make the cape flare around him. It’s an intimidation tactic, automatic as the way he rounds his shoulders a little bit and takes a step closer to Ra’s, even though we both know that won’t work. “If _any_ of this is your doing,” he threatens, as I follow him to standing, “if you had _anything_ to do with keeping Jason separated from his soul…”

He lets it hang, and Ra’s’ eyes narrow. Bruce’s enemy slowly, deliberately, stands. I can’t help the way that my hands fall to finger the slight irregularities of the weapons stowed in my suit. Ra’s meets Bruce’s height, backlit by the fire as he squarely faces off with my mentor, the robes providing him his own style of cape.

“Do you believe I am _immune_ to the sensation your son gives off?” he asks, sharply and cold. “Anyone who meets him, who looks into his eyes, knows that somewhere at his core there is something _wrong_. The idea of an assassin without guilt, without remorse, without the _capacity_ to feel sympathy, is a tantalizing one. But an assassin without emotion is an assassin without _loyalty_ , and I have no wish to test my own life on an attempt to control something like that. Your son, _Detective_ , is in constant pain. Every moment of every day, he can feel what everyone else around him knows. That he is _hollow_. That he is _wrong_. The physical pain alone would have crippled anyone without the _remarkable_ strength he shows, and the knowledge of what was lost would have sent anyone else to an early grave by their own hand within weeks if not days.”

Ra’s doesn’t take a step forward, he doesn’t even shift his weight, but the narrowing of his eyes feels like a threat all on its own. “The Lazarus Pit is not kind to those it heals. Jason has forced himself to learn to tolerate that constant pain, as well as to control the rage that the Pit inspires at the _slightest_ irritation. Beyond that he had to teach himself to fight without the guidance of instinctual fear to tell him when to dodge, or when something was too dangerous a move to attempt. He knew you would never accept his state, so he did not return to you. He created this plan because he decided it was the best way he could make use of his new existence, even knowing that his entire family would condemn him. Your son is _extraordinarily_ strong, Detective, and I would not risk that strength turning its attention to me.”

He glances to me, and then gives a soft sigh and a small shake of his head as he returns his gaze to Bruce. “What do you think your son is going to do when his goal is accomplished, Detective? Have you considered that? When Gotham is clean, the way he intends it to be, what do you think Jason will do? Stay there for the rest of his life, fighting all of you and grinding the blood on his hands deeper? You should know your own son better than that.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” Bruce’s voice shakes, just a little bit. I stay silent, still, _hoping_ that Ra’s doesn’t mean what it sounds like he does.

“Jason believes himself to be an abomination. In some ways, he is correct. It is a simple knowledge for him, as he is incapable of the feelings that would cause it to be painful.” Ra’s studies Bruce for a long few second, and then quietly says, “He is fully aware there is no place in Gotham for him, Detective. As he is fully aware there is no place in your family for him. He hasn’t spoken of it to me, but it is not difficult to piece an ending together out of those facts.”

No, Jason wouldn’t— _God_ , Jason would never kill himself, would he? The Jason I knew would never do that, not _ever_ , but maybe…? If it was the best option to him, why wouldn’t he? No fear to stop him, no regret, no guilt. Jason is capable of _anything_ he thinks is necessary. Even if that means…

Bruce whirls on his heel, and after a startled moment I rush to follow his stride across the glass-scattered wooden flooring of Ra’s’ study. His shoulders are stiff, tense, and I can barely see the flick of his hand calling the jet back to retrieve us. This is _bad_. This is _seriously_ bad. Not just Jason, but Bruce’s reaction, Ra’s’ certainty, _all_ of it. Oh _god_.

“One last thing, Detective,” Ra’s calls, and Bruce stops so suddenly I almost slam into his back. Luckily my reflexes catch it, but— “If you find Jason’s soul, you may wish to pause and consider things before you decide to return it to him. It may get you back what you feel you’ve lost, but Jason is his own man now. Death is not easy. The Pit takes a heavy toll. What he’s done has gone against much of what he once believed in. If you return his soul, it may break him entirely.”

Bruce turns just enough to look past me, at Ra’s, and snarl, “Then I’ll put him back together.” Then he’s moving again, and I _try_ not to let the sick feeling in my gut get any further than the vagueness of nausea.

Ra’s is right. What happened to Jason would have been hell on him if he was capable of feeling the emotional pain. He would have been _destroyed_ by something like that. I think he might have only come out sane because he was cut off from it. And how much pain would his anger come with? How much guilt over what he’s done, or what he has planned? If we give him back his soul — if we can even _find_ it — how hard will all of that hit him? Jason always felt things _so_ strongly; remembering all of that at once…

There’s not a scenario that plays through my head that doesn’t end in Jason insane or broken beyond our ability to help him.

It shouldn’t be our choice. _If_ we can find his soul, and that’s a _huge_ if, it should be Jason’s choice whether or not he wants to be reunited with it. We _can’t_ force that on him, not with what it might do to him. He already has enough reasons to hate us; _forcing_ him to live that kind of trauma would be so far past unforgivable. I can’t be part of that, and I _won’t_ let Bruce be part of it either. It has to be Jason’s choice. It _has_ to be, and I almost hope he never agrees.

I saw my brother die. I don’t know if I could stand seeing him break too.


End file.
